beatification

Many years ago when I was at home with small children I had little if any time to look at the news. I did not know it at the time, but I was really out of touch with what was going on in the world - especially here in the Western Hemisphere. Much much later in my life I had the opportunity to get know a man from Guatemala. Over time, he shared his personal story with me. He was a teenager when the Latin America civil wars raged across Central America. His stories were very powerful and because of his stories I was motivated to read some history regarding the revolutions and counter-revolutions that took so many lives and created so much havoc.
I was actually stunned when I learned how involved the United States had been in the on going political chaos. You could call me naive, but really I was just a typical mother whose time was fully taken up with caring for babies and young children who were totally dependent on me. In its own way it was a blessing not to know since I could not have done anything anyway.
Yesterday when Archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified ( a step on the way to sainthood in the Catholic tradition ) the tension of those past times became more understandable to me. I am committed to non-violence and therefore I am not a proponent of war or violent revolution. That does not mean that I advocate pacifism which is an entirely different mindset altogether. I just don't see the point in killing to stop killing. Compassionate living, the kind of compassionate living that avoids harm to all other life forms, is not easy. It takes thought and planning and often requires large doses of humility in order to ask for forgiveness when harm occurs unintentionally.     
Being committed to non-violence does not mean never getting angry and wanting to stop someone or something that is harmful. People who actively practice non-violence often put themselves at risk rather than using violence against others. It takes a lot of courage not to run or look for a weapon when there is the potential of harm to oneself.
Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke out against injustice. He repeatedly put himself in between the poor of El Salvador and the oppressive military regime. He pleaded publicly for an end to armed conflict - at times begging the military to lay down their weapons. El Salvador was a predominantly Catholic country so the people who were killing were members of Romero's church as well as those who were being killed. For raising his voice Romero was assassinated. But his strength, and his commitment to non-violence lived on wherever the poor struggled for justice without violence.

The victory that was achieved yesterday when Romero was beatified may be hard for people outside the community of faith to understand because it is rooted in the controversy around Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology has at its core a preferential option for the poor with the belief that all people everywhere have the right to live with their basic needs met and enough freedom to live their lives as they choose. Because of the injustice that exists in post-colonial Latin America, and in other countries where the disparity between rich and poor is not only racially based, but also a direct effect of the conquest of one people by another, Liberation Theology is entrenched. Inspired by Liberation Theology many of the poor and oppressed together chose to stand up to the government and demand freedom from fear and violence. They also demanded access to the goods that met their basic needs. The strategies they used were non-violent and faithful to the teachings of Jesus- and many people were killed. Many people fled over the borders to the north seeking asylum as my friend did. It was a terrible time of death squads and disappearances as some of the oppressed took up the same methods as their oppressors and became armed insurrectionists.

It is because of the fact that some of the poor who were loved and defended by Romero became armed insurrectionists that Romero, and Liberation Theology in general, created such tension within the church. Was Oscar Romero a political figure as his detractors and eventual assassins claimed? Or was he a man of faith willing to stand up regardless of the personal cost?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi. Sr. Dorothy Stang. Oscar Romero.
It doesn't take too much thought to come up with the names of others who have been in the center of controversy because of their faithful work.

I look forward to the time when Oscar Romero is added to the calendar of Saints