SAN ROMERO DE AMERICA MEDAL (Óscar Arnulfo Romero)

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Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (Ciudad Barrios, August 15, 1917 - San Salvador, March 24, 1980), known as Monsignor Romero,1 was a Salvadoran Catholic priest, fourth metropolitan archbishop of San Salvador (1977-1980), famous for his preaching in defense of human rights. As archbishop, he denounced in his Sunday homilies numerous human rights violations and publicly expressed his solidarity with the victims of political violence in his country.2 His assassination provoked an international outcry demanding respect for human rights in El Salvador. Within the Catholic Church he was seen as a bishop who defended the "preferential option for the poor". In one of his homilies, he affirmed: "The mission of the Church is to identify itself with the poor, thus the Church finds its salvation" (November 11, 1977). His actions are admired by followers of liberation theology;3 however, according to his secretary Monsignor Jesús Delgado, "Romero was not interested" in it.4For the Jesuit Martin Maier, if before 1977 he had judged it as a dangerous theological fashion, afterwards he chose Ignacio Ellacuría (martyred like him) and Jon Sobrino as his theological advisors and emphasized in his homilies and pastoral letters the option for the poor, the signs of the times, praxis and the method of seeing-judging-acting.5 At the Puebla Conference he met with the liberation theologians, who had been denied official participation. At Louvain, he dispelled prejudices against liberation theology.6 In 1979 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize7 at the suggestion of the UK Parliament.8 However, the laureate that year was Teresa of Calcutta. He was assassinated during the celebration of a Eucharist in the chapel of the Divina Providencia hospital in San Salvador. The order for his murder has never been officially confirmed.9 On March 24, 1990, the cause for the canonization of Monsignor Romero was initiated. In 1994, the request for canonization was formally presented to his successor Arturo Rivera y Damas. As a result of this process, Monsignor Romero received the title of Servant of God.10 On February 3, 2015, he was recognized by the Catholic Church as a martyr "for hatred of the faith", when the corresponding decree of martyrdom was approved by Pope Francis and promulgated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.1112 Therefore, in accordance with the due process as stipulated by the Catholic Church itself, on May 23, 2015, he was beatified in the Salvador del Mundo Square. A little more than three years later, on October 14, 2018, he was canonized by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square in Rome.13 The Catholic Church venerates him as a saint and some of the faithful refer to him as St. Romero of America.141516 Oscar Romero enjoys the following particularities: He is the first Salvadoran to be elevated to the altars; the first martyred archbishop of America;8 the first to be declared a martyr subsequent to the Second Vatican Council;17 the first native saint of Central America,18 since, although it is true that the saintly brother Pedro de San José de Betancur carried out all his work for which he was canonized in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in Guatemala and, therefore, also a Central American saint, his origins are in Tenerife, Spain.19Furthermore, the sanctification by the Catholic Church is not the first one he has received, since the Anglican Church had already included him in its official saints' calendar,20 as well as the Lutheran Church had also already included him in its liturgical calendar.2122 Outside the Catholic Church, Romero is honored by other religious denominations in Christendom,23 including the Anglican Communion and Lutheranism, as mentioned above.2425 In the Anglican Communion, he is one of the ten martyrs of the twentieth century represented in statues in London's Westminster Abbey.2627 Oscar Romero is admired even outside the Christian world, even being valued in irreligious circles.28