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Assassinated 45 years ago in 1980 by El Salvador’s military dictatorship, Óscar Romero remains a symbol of the country's working-class struggle.
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Here’s a rewritten version with the same impact and clarity:
His was a voice people waited for all week. A voice of love. A voice of reason. A voice that stood against the violence engulfing his homeland.
This was El Salvador in the late 1970s—a country teetering on the edge of civil war, ruled by a ruthless authoritarian regime.
U.S.-trained death squads were slaughtering nearly 800 people a month.
And Monsignor Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador—the bishop of the poor—refused to stay silent.
Every Sunday, his sermons echoed across the airwaves, reaching homes and hearts throughout Central America. His words carried hope, courage, and an unwavering demand for justice.
But he had not always been so outspoken. It was the suffering around him—the killings, the brutality of the state—that transformed him.
In 1977, just weeks after Romero was appointed archbishop, his close friend, Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, was assassinated alongside a child and an elderly peasant.
Grande had championed liberation theology, organized Christian base communities, and spoken out against government oppression.
Standing before his friend’s body in the cathedral, Romero made a choice.
“I, too, have to walk the same path,” he declared.
As state violence escalated, so did his defiance. He publicly condemned the massacres, called on the U.S. to stop funding the Salvadoran military, and became the voice of the oppressed.
On March 23, 1980, during his final sermon, he addressed the country’s soldiers directly.
“The law of God that says ‘thou shalt not kill’ must prevail,” he proclaimed. “No soldier is obliged to obey an order that goes against the law of God.”
Then, his final plea:
“In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people, whose cries rise to heaven more tumultuously every day—I beseech you, I beg you, I order you, in the name of God, stop the repression!”
The very next day, he was assassinated at the altar while delivering Mass.
They called him the voice of the poor. La voz de los sin voz. The voice of the voiceless.
And he still is. His words endure, his image carried in marches across the Americas.
His legacy lives on............
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