Oscar Romero - Westminster Abbey, London, UK
N 51° 29.968 W 000° 07.716
30U E 699295 N 5709279
A statue to Oscar Romero, a modern martyr, was unveiled in July 1998 and stands above the west entrance to Westminster Abbey. This is one of ten statues of 20th century martyrs.
Waymark Code: WME2CB
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/25/2012
Views: 9
The statue, by John Roberts, was placed here in 1998. It
weighs about a ton and is carved from French Richemont limestone. The statue,
that is about twice life size, shows Romero in the robes of a priest. He is
wearing spectacles and in his left arm he is holding a small child. His right
arm is across his chest with his first two fingers extended as if blessing the
child.
The Westminster Abbey website (visit
link) tells us this about Romero:
"'I must tell you, as a Christian, I do not believe in death without
resurrection. If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people.'
Oscar Romero was born in Ciudad Barrios, a town in the mountainous east of El
Salvador, on 15 August 1917. He was the second of seven children. When he was
thirteen he declared a vocation to the priesthood.
He went to a seminary in San Miguel, then to the capital San Salvador, and from
there to Rome. He was ordained in 1942. In January 1944 he was recalled to San
Miguel by his bishop and was soon secretary of the diocese. This position he
held for twenty-three years. In San Miguel his work flourished and his
reputation grew. He established a succession of new organizations and inspired
many with his sermons, broadcast by five local radio stations and heard across
the city.
Romero was impressed, though not always uncritical, of the new Catholicism that
was affirmed with such confidence in Vatican II. In 1970 he became auxiliary
bishop of San Salvador, and there he busied himself with administration. Many
found him a conservative in views and by temperament. In 1974 he became bishop
of a rural diocese, Santiago de Maria. Three years later, in February 1977,
Oscar Romero became archbishop of San Salvador.
In that month a crowd of protesters were attacked by soldiers in the town square
of the capital. Then, on 12 March 1977, a radical priest, Rutilio Grande, was
murdered in Aguilares. Romero had known him. Now he observed that there was no
official enquiry. He recognized that power lay in the hands of violent men, and
that they murdered with impunity. The wealthy sanctioned the violence that
maintained them. Death squads committed murder in the cities while soldiers
killed as they wished in the countryside. When a new government which
represented a coalition of powerful interests was elected it was seen to be by
fraud. There was talk of revolution.
More and more Romero committed himself to the poor and the persecuted, and he
became the catalyst for radical moral prophecy in the church and outside it.
Meanwhile, his church began to document the abuse of human rights, and to
establish the truth in a country governed by lies, where men and women simply
disappeared without account. The press attacked him vehemently. Romero, it was
said, allied the church with revolutionaries. This he repudiated: the church was
not a political movement. But when a succession of priests were murdered Romero
found in their deaths testimony of a church incarnated in the problems of its
people.
In May 1979 he visited the Pope in Rome and presented him with seven dossiers
filled with reports and documents describing the injustices of El Salvador. But
his friends sensed his isolation in the church, while the threats and dangers
against him mounted outside it. On 24 March 1980 he was suddenly shot dead while
celebrating mass in the chapel of the hospital where he lived.
Today the memory of Oscar Romero is cherished by the people of El Salvador, and
by countless Christians across the world."