Óscar Romero was an Archbishop of San Salvador and social activist who was assassinated on this day in 1980 after giving a sermon where he urged government soldiers to desert their ranks and stop carrying out state oppression.

Romero spoke out against social injustice, assassinations, and torture happening during the Salvadoran Civil War. Although initially perceived as a conservative, Romero became an activist after the assassination of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande in 1977.

During the civil war, Romero was a prominent figure in El Salvador, giving popular radio sermons in which he reported disappearances, tortures, murders, and other repressed information each Sunday. In a media landscape that was heavily censored, Romero became an important source of news for what was going on in the country. According to listener surveys, 73% of the rural population and 47% of the urban listened regularly.

In 1980, Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence, the day after he gave a sermon urging soldiers to listen to “God’s orders” and desert their ranks rather than continuing to oppress the domestic population. Romero’s funeral was interrupted by smoke bombs and rifle shots from surrounding buildings that were fired into the mourning crowd, killing dozens.

In 2000, The Guardian named Oscar Perez Linares as the assassin, using declassified CIA documents as evidence. Investigations by the UN-created “Truth Commission for El Salvador” concluded that the extreme right-wing politician and death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson had given the order to kill Romero. Both died before being brought to justice for their role in Romero’s murder.

“A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?”

Óscar Romero

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