OSCAR ROMERO and my life story

I’ve just finished reading yet another bio on Archbishop Romero. Then there was a piece on him in America magazine. I realized that in these past 27 years (he was assassinated in 1980 – seems like yesterday), he has become my favorite hero. Talk about opposites attracting !! Oscar (I feel fuzzier when I call him by his first name –he probably would have asked me to) was a man of magnificent courage and humble cunning, speaking out, bravely yet suavely, against strident, unabashed social injustices, pleading prayerfully and incessantly for peace, begging like a broken record on behalf of the poor. I don’t have this kind of the compassionate grandeur of courage. There are times when, in preparing my weekend homily, I wonder if people will take something I say out of context and blast me for browbeating a ‘captive audience.’ It has happened so I’m delivered from the psychobabble curse of paranoia. Some of my lack of courage is due to my impatience. Joyce Rupp, whose writings I admire greatly, in her book, Fresh Bread and Other Gifts of Spiritual Nourishment, wrote, “People of courage recognize and live with their ‘unfinishedness’.” I’m a type A. For example, I don’t go for instant gratification because it takes too long. Anyway back to homily preparation. I realize with, I hope, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that I must speak out for peace and peacemaking. It sort of smacks of the priestly thing to do. How can I do this without referencing warfare? And where is the war? Of course, in IRAQ. Or as our esteemed President constantly calls it, EEErack. (No wonder people around the world hate us). So I use Iraq as an example. I don’t berate anyone that I know of. I don’t condemn the present Administration for getting us into this Halloween-masked excuse for furthering USA imperialism under the ever present, hypocritical banner of NATIONAL SECURITY. I don’t attack that little Napoleon who has taken over the body of our well-meaning (with a wild stretch of the bounty of benefit of the doubt) but a stupidly arrogant, sneaky puppeteer – our own VP. I talk about peace as found in the gospel stories. I quote Jesus, the Prince of Peace (although there are those who are convinced that Prince of Peace is not as powerful and demanding or as sacred as his other title, Christ the King – oh, for a good course in symbols !!). After which, filled or almost filled with satisfaction I smilingly greet the people who bother to greet me after Mass, and there are those who complain, “You’re preaching politics, Father,” I say something like I thought I was preaching gospel peace. I thought I was trying to make a connection between the gospel and where you live. I thought I was following the inspiration of our American bishops in their booklet, Fulfilled in Your Hearing. “In a homily the preacher does not so much attempt to explain the scriptures as to interpret the human situation through the scriptures.” (Another Episcopal bromide gone the way of the Beatitudes). “You used statistics about the number killed and wounded, Father.” I say something like I always believed that concrete examples helped the people to understand better (not to mention giving a little spice to an otherwise riotously dull performance). I usually try to end my homilies with a humorous story to balance the cunning heaviness of the aforementioned homily. One time I told a humorous story about a lawyer. The people laughed heartily. After Mass a gentlemen – and he was indeed a gentleman – approached and told me that while he appreciated my humor (not really mine since I steal the stuff right and left) but didn’t I realize that I was denigrating the entire lawyer culture? (Like denigration is needed). I asked him if he was a lawyer. He said no. (Selfless to be sure). I told him I had run the story past a lawyer friend and she howled. I also mentioned that a humorous story has only one punch line and if we pull the details out of the story, we could always find something to take umbrage at. And that for it to be humorous someone or some group has to bear the brunt of the part of the story that brings out the laughter. He was polite, did not stalk off, but I had the intuition that he wasn’t the happiest camper in our parish village. All hail to our newest idol: Political Correctness !! Sometimes I go back to my rooms (luxurious contrasted with what the people in El Salvador live in) and meditate on Oscar (I feel fuzzier when I call him by his first name –he probably would have asked me to). Sometimes I even pray to him even though he still hasn’t been canonized (I often wonder what kind of a greeting Oscar gave JPII when he finally arrived in heaven). And that’s another opposite attracting: Oscar will be canonized one day as soon as Vatican officials in all their nervous expertise recognize that Oscar wasn’t a remuddling Communist like the ones who crushed the people of Poland. After all, the Vatican tends to move with the impetuosity of a glacier. (“Rome wasn’t built in a day” etc.). As soon as the Vatican stamp of approval catches up with the sense of the faithful who honor Oscar as a warrior orator saint and a meticulously unhurried martyr. As soon as Vatican officialdom agrees that Oscar died for the faith (that question being the formal stumbling block: did he really die for the faith or only for social justice and peace?). and was not just indulging in what could be considered being politically incorrect. Ah, to have the luxury of spending one’s pampered priesthood in giggle fits of hairsplitting. Anyway the opposite is that I’ll never, never be canonized probably for trying to be too politically correct.

S