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The saints

St. Oscar Romero

A cautious archbishop who found his voice, and was shot while celebrating Mass.

Feast: 24 March (date from the Roman Martyrology; not on the universal calendar) · 1917 to 1980 · The modern era · San Salvador, El Salvador

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Photograph of St. Oscar Romero in glasses and a bishop’s cassock with a pectoral cross.

Arzobispado de San Salvador; Congregatio de Causis Sanctorum, 1978. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Oscar Romero

San Salvador, 1980

Óscar Romero was seen as a careful, bookish choice for archbishop of San Salvador in 1977.1

Weeks later his friend Father Rutilio Grande was murdered for defending poor farmers.1

Romero changed, and began to speak on the radio against the killings and repression.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church remembers him as a martyr of El Salvador.

01St. Oscar Romero

At the altar

On 24 March 1980, he was shot while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel.1

He was canonized in 2018.1

Live it this week

Use your voice for the voiceless

Romero spoke up when it was dangerous. This week, write or call one elected official about an injustice against the poor, and pray for those affected.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.