Out of Mountjoy in a helicopter

It was 21 degrees Celsius yesterday in Berlin.

And on this date, October 31, 1973 three members of the Provisional IRA made a sensational escape from Mountjoy Prison aboard a hijacked helicopter, which landed in the excercise yard.

Genuine service brings out the best in us

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

The Gospel reading for the liturgy on Sunday October 22 included this sentence: ‘You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you.’

There’s always a danger that people in authority will lord it over others or at least try to do so.

In the current environment it’s easy to criticise the church but it’s a valid target.

The dominant role the church played in Irish society was not healthy. So much about the behaviour of the institutional church in the Ireland in which I grew up was contrary to the sentiment expressed in the Gospel reading quoted above. And the priests and the bishops allowed it to happen. 

Of course the church did great work, there were many fine sisters and priests but the institutional church was treated with a deference that was not healthy and unfortunately responded accordingly.

Bishops living in palaces, travelling around the country in fancy cars driven by chauffeurs. It was insane and all that’s happening today is that they are reaping the harvest they sowed.

But it’s the people who allow such nonsense to prevail.

It has obviously something to do with our makeup. All societies look for heroes or role models. The left and the right do it: Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Franco, Salazar. Okay, they were off the scale but it happens to lesser degrees too. We had deValera, the British have the Royals. And in all cases, all paid for with tax payers’ money.

We seem to have an insatiable desire to set certain people or groups apart from the rest of us and then give them an attention and honour/respect that is preposterous. It certainly is contrary to everything that the Gospel is about.

These days it’s not popular to place the clergy in a special position but they have simply been replaced by different groups.

In the days before the presidential election there was a controversy over President Michael D Higgins flying to Belfast and his car then picking him up at the airport. It all sounds crazy. There’s a top class rail service between Dublin and Belfast. Why could he not have used the train?

From time to time we get a hint of the lifestyles of our politicians and senior civil servants. They often lose the run of themselves and expect to be treated like ladies and lords of the manor.

Does it ever dawn on them that they are public servants? They are in their jobs to serve the people. That’s their title.

There is something about genuine service that brings out the best in people.

Parents looking after children, children caring for elderly parents, anyone who is at the service of another person knows well the difficulties involved but they also know the value of what they are doing.

Is it not true that those who offer genuine service are the ones who are the most reticent to push themselves out into positions of prominence?

The adulation we give so many people and groups in society seems a madness.

I spotted the current four-page constituency newsletter of a government minister. He managed to include on those four pages 30 photographs of himself plus a list of all his ‘achievements’.

Has public life become a playground for narcissists? I can’t help but think of what I hear Mr Trump say and do.

The worry is there are loads of nascent Trumps out there.

Fighting Catholic patriarchy from the inside

From The New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/lucetta-scaraffia-is-trying-to-fight-catholic-patriarchy-from-the-inside

More losses for Berlin coalition

The elections in the German state of Hessen yesterday proved more disappointment for the Berlin CDU/CSU and SPD coalition.

The CDU vote decreased by 10.9 per cent and the SPD lost 11.1 per cent of its voters.

The big winners were the Green Party and the far-right AfD.

The AfD is now represented in all 16 state parliaments in Germany.

The Left Party, Die Linke, also marginally increased its vote as did the FDP, Liberal Party.

Wiesbaden is the capital city of Hessen. The major cities in the state include Frankfurt-am-Main, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Bad Homburg. Russelsheim, the home of Opel, is also in the state. And Kassel in the north of Hessen is one of the major crossroads on the German rail network.

Trump praises violence

On the day after the shooting dead of 11 Jews in a US synagogue and the maiming of many others it's worth recalling words spoken by US President Donald Trump as reported in the guardian on October 19.

Donald Trump has praised Greg Gianforte, the Congress member from Montana, for violently attacking a Guardian reporter, saying that someone who performs a body slam is “my guy”.

Trump described in glowing terms the physical assault that occurred on 24 May 2017 when Ben Jacobs, the Guardian’s political correspondent, asked Gianforte a question about healthcare policy in the course of a special congressional election in Montana. The US president incited cheers and chants from a crowd of about 8,000 supporters on Thursday night when he said: “Greg is smart. And by the way, never wrestle him. You understand. Never.”

A seat for the woman

This piece appears in The Sunday Letter in the parishes of Rathgar and Clonskeagh this week.

Michael Commane

There was a sentence in last Sunday’s Gospel that jumped off the page for me: ‘You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you.’

But isn’t that exactly what so often happens in society?

In the past in Ireland the churches had far too much power in society. Many clergymen were served rather than they serving. 

Surely priesthood is all about service.

Isn’t that exactly what that sentence in the Gospel tells us?

Unfortunately, there’s something in the human psyche that allows our egos to run riot with us and with a little persuasion we can easily consider ourselves lords and ladies of the manor.

It’s fair to say that we have a fine Civil Service, a group of people who does Ireland proud. We call them public servants and that’s exactly what they are, because it is their job to serve the people. 

What a shame when they get too big for their boots and they end up being served rather than serving.

We all know that when we serve people, whether it’s parents caring for their children, children keeping an eye out on their elderly parents, wherever someone is enhancing the life of another person, human beings are at their best.

The job of the church is to serve.

Watching the World Family Day event in Croke Park when Pope Francis was sitting up on the podium flanked by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Cardinal Kevin Farrell it struck me how nicer and better it would have been, instead of three men sitting on those seats, had there been a woman sitting where Cardinal Farrell was. 

No, it would not have been a PR stunt. The optics would have been right and the story it would have told. The message it would have told had the provincial of the Presentation or Mercy Sisters, or someone from a congregation of Irish religious sisters been sitting beside Pope Francis. Why did they not have a woman beside the pope?

The Berrigan brothers

On this date in 1967 Fr Philip Berrigan was one of a number of people who protested against the Vietnam war by pouring blood on US Selective Service cards.

He later left priesthood, married a former relgious sister and the couple had four children.

His brother, Jesuit priest Daniel, was also at the vanguard in objecting the to the US aggression in Vietnam.

Daniel died a Jesuit.

Two fine men, inspiring priests.

Daniel said of his brothe Phillip:

"From the beginning, he stood with the urban poor. He rejected the traditional, isolated stance of the church in black communities. He was also incurably secular; he saw the church as one resource, bringing to bear on the squalid facts of racism the light of the Gospel, the presence of inventive courage and hope."

In 1966 US advisers told the White House that a war in Vietnam was unwinnable.

From the early stages of US engagement in Vietnam, field commanders reported back to the Pentagon that all was not going to plan but those reports seldom if ever reached the White House.

Over two million Vietnamese lost thir lives and approximately 58,000 US soldiers died in a war that from day one made no sense whatsoever.

Streisand sees Trump as a conman

Barbra Streisand on Trump

An extract from a piece in today's guardian.

“I can’t bear the man!” she says at one point, her voice rising up to the roof. “He’s a man with no manners! He doesn’t see his own flaws; he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. 

You know? He has no humility.” He is, she concedes, “good at marketing. He knows how to sell; he’s a conman. That’s what he’s good at. But he doesn’t think he needs anyone’s help, he thinks he can go it alone.” She adds, drily: “The big guy.”

"About two weeks ago, I had a call from Senator Bob Dole and he wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed my music and it was just so sweet of him, he’s 95 years old. 

And we talked about Trump! I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but we talked about when people are fair and open-minded, they can walk across the aisle. 

"That’s what life should be about, where people communicate and agree to disagree with kindness and respect. 

And we’re losing all of that. I wish we had a gracious president who had compassion, someone who doesn’t have to insult his opponents or make fun of people with disabilities, or can take criticism without lashing out.”

Bono writes in Germany's leading daily newspaper

Tuesday's Frankfurter Allgemeine features an article by Bono on the European Union

The piece is titled: 'Europe: An idea, which must become a feeling'

He writes:  "Europe is difficult to find these days in Europe. That's the case, even though there has never been a better place in the world to have been born than in the Europe of the last 50 years.

He concludes: "To overcome these difficult times Europe must move from a thought or idea to a feeling.

It makes for a lovely read.

Over one third of population binge drink

Junior Minister Catherine Byrne yesterday launched the annual Healthy Ireland Survey, funded by the Department of Health and conducted by Ipsos MRBI.

Prevalence of smoking has dropped from 23 per cent in 2015 to 20 per cent in 2018 which means there are now an estimated 80,000 fewer smokers than there were three years ago.  

New plain packaging with health warnings was cited by 23 per cent  of smokers as a good motivation to quit. In the last 12 months 40 per cent of smokers have made an attempt to quit.

A new focus in the 2018 survey is on the key health issues and the differences between more affluent and more deprived areas; in deprived areas 26 per cent smoke, 43 per cent binge drink, and 33 per cent have long standing illnesses compared to those in more affluent areas where 16 per cent smoke, 33 per cent binge drink, and 24 per cent have long standing illnesses.

Alcohol consumption figures for 2018 show that 37 per cent of the population binge drink, which means they consume six or more standard units in one drinking occasion. 

UN birthday

On this day, October 24, 1945, the United Nations was founded.

It came into being with 51 member states, today there are 193 states in the UN.

Its main purpose is to maintain international peace and security.

The current Secretary General is António Guterres.

Headquarters is in New York, which has extra-territorial status. It has other main offices in Nairobi, Vienna and Geneva.

Ireland joined the United Nations in 1955.

The Portuguese are so gracious

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

When I was younger it was second nature for me to jump on and off planes. Fadó fadó my sister worked for British Airways, which made me eligible for cheap flights, something I availed of  as often as possible. I lived in Germany and Italy for a number of years, which meant a lot of coming and going, availing of cheap fares.

As I get older and airports grow busier I have lost that early verve for flying.

These days too I’m conscious of our carbon footprint.

The first time I flew through Dublin Airport was 1965. It’s changed since then. I remember on one occasion, probably 1974, flying to Frankfurt leaving something behind me in my parents’ car. A cousin was allowed come right to the gate to give it to me. Imagine trying that today?

I had to travel to Portugal last week for a short four-day visit.

It was my first time in Portugal and in the Algarve.

Ryanair to Faro and then two buses to my destination.

On my bus journey from Faro to the Algarve I noticed how people were so gracious towards each another. The bus driver greeted people in the friendliest manner as they got on and off the bus. 

In my four days in the country I did not once hear a car horn or see a hint of aggressive driving.

I was struck by the gentleness of the Portuguese people.

Coming home on Sunday I bought a rail ticket at the local station to bring me to the airport.

Sitting down waiting for the train I got talking to a fellow passenger, who was German. I had spotted her presenting a card to the railway official and asked her about it. She explained that EU pensioners travel on Portuguese railways for half fare. I was embarrassed to go back to the counter to ask could I change my ticket. But I picked up the courage and did just that. The railway official could not have been more pleasant. She simply printed me out a new ticket, smiled and refunded my overpayment.

All EU pensioners in Portugal and Spain can avail of half fare travel on the two countries’ rail networks.

It’s surprising that it’s not something that is publicised more widely by the Portuguese and Spanish authorities in attracting tourists. I have never seen it mentioned in any travel literature I have read. Why don’t Aer Lingus and Ryanair tell their passengers about it?

But I am wondering about the entire tourist trade. While in Portugal the number of tourists I saw walking about looking bored, constantly peering into their smart phones. I saw a young fellow take a picture of his girlfriend’s shadow.  Am I just being an old fuddy-duddy criticising the latest trends?

I remember once cycling from Oostende to Trier and the fun I had navigating my journey with the help of maps.

My short visit to Portugal reinforced some of the many benefits of the EU.

Whatever about the silly aspects to tourism, it’s wonderful to be able to experience other people, their traditions and customs with such ease.

The European Union, in spirit and practice, fosters a sense of solidarity and friendship. It gives the citizens of the 28 member states ‘the right to move and reside freely within the Union. Individual freedoms such as respect for private life, freedom of thought, religion, assembly, expression and information are protected by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

It has brought us peace.

'The centre cannot hold'

Yeats wrote these lines in 1919. And how it applies today.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Mass en route to work

In The Tablet this week Adrian Chiles compares going to a reserve match at the Hawthorns to joining a sparsely attended weekday Mass. “You are not many, but you are true.”

Between 30 and 50 people join in prayer every weekday for 07.30 Mass at the Three Patrons church in Dublin's Rathgar.

On Wednesdays a memebr of the congregation speaks for two minutes on what the Gospel of the day means for them.

The practice began on Ash Wednesday this year.

It has been an eye-opener into the faith and knowledge of those who come to the Mass.

Nothing new about Trump's rallies

This is a shocking story.

The President of the United States can behave in this manner and it hardly makes the news.

He travels around the United States making people angry, adovacting violence.

He works people into a rage, more or less in the same fashion as the little Austrian corporal.

He speaks about 'making America great again', Hitler assured the mob that he would restore Germany to its rightful place in the world after Weimar and the humiliation of defeat after World War I.  

Trump keeps proclaiming that America under Obama was humiliated and the Americans forget what Barack Obama inherited. Had Weimar been given another year an Adolf Hitler would have been impossible.

In the post-war world it has been a taboo subject to compare any leader, demagogue or tyrant to Adolf Hitler.

But the similarity between the angry mobs who listened to Hitler and Trump's mobs makes for a startling comparison.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/trump-greg-gianforte-assault-guardian-ben-jacobs?CMP=share_btn_link

Local matters

It's the little gestures that can mean so much.

Last evening in a Dublin hospital a night nurse sits down and talks to a patient.

They have so many local issues to discuss. Both of them are animated, genuinely interested in each other's story.

They are talking about things Kerry. They both come from Kerry.

To catch a glimpse of their faces was magic.

Crimea's east-west-east swing

Yesterday saw a young man run amok in Kerch in eastern Crimea. A number of young people were killed.

On this day, October 18, 1921 Crimea was integrated into the Soviet Union.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. Crimea came under the jurisdiction of Ukraine.

Since March 2014 Crimea has been under the authority of the Russian Federation.

Oscar Romero's take on earthly liberation

When something is good and exciting, makes great reading and hits a tone it's surely worth repeating.

This is a paragraph from a piece on Oscar Romero from The Tablet, which appeared on this blog on Friday, October 12.

Time and again, Romero would emphasise that human or earthly liberation, though not identical with the full liberation that Christianity preached, was not separate from it either. 

For this reason, believers need to be active in making the world more just. “Those who want to be co-partners in the promises of eternity,” he wrote, “have to collaborate with God in establishing justice, peace and love in this kingdom on Earth.”

Oscar Romeros in the Irish church?

Holy See sacks German Jesuit

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Last week German newspapers reported the story of a Jesuit priest losing his job at the Saint George philosophy-theology institute in Frankfurt-am-Main.

Fr Ansgar Wucherpennig had been re-elected rector at the institute and subsequently lost his job when the Vatican sacked him.

Wucherpennig is an academic with expertise in biblical scholarship. He has questioned the scriptural interpretation of homosexuality. 

His pastoral outreach is to the homosexual community in Frankfurt city.

The 52-year-old Jesuit has also called for the church to recognise the love between homosexuals.

The story has been carried by a number of German newspapers including the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’, which is a highly regarded liberal-leaning newspaper, which despite its name, is a national paper, available across the whole of Germany.

There’s nothing new in such action from the Vatican but there are aspects to this story, which are interesting.

It’s important to remember that Wucherpennig is a Jesuit as is Pope Francis. What did Francis know about this case before it went public?

Often during the Vietnam War vital information sent from the field back to the Pentagon never made it to the sitting president. No doubt similar shenanigans take place on a daily basis at the Vatican.

Something relatively new is happening in the Wucherpennig case. 

The Bishop of Limburg, Gerorg Bätzing, whose diocese includes the city of Frankfurt, has come out in support of the silenced priest academic, so too has his Jesuit provincial, Johannes Seibner.

And another senior Frankfurt priest, Johannes zu Eltz has expressed great anger at the Vatican decision.

He said to the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’ newspaper: ‘Ansgar Wucherpennig is a genuine priest and a professional academic. 

There is no sense or reason to this. How stupid can it get?’

Germany plays an important role in the life of the Catholic Church.

In those seemingly innocent days fadó fadó when altar girls first appeared in the diocese of Cologne the Vatican was nervous but quickly changed its mind when the then archbishop of Cologne gently pointed out to Rome that Cologne was one of the wealthiest diocese in the universal Catholic Church. 

Thereafter altar girls were never a problem.

Issues concerning all matters of sexuality raise their heads on a daily basis in the Catholic Church, indeed, in all churches. Sexuality is close to all of us.

But the Catholic Church has a real conundrum when it comes to all aspects of homosexuality and it seems to be tying itself up in knots.

There is an idea in circulation that it is the liberal wing of the church that goes easy on homosexuality. 

Whether that’s the case or not can be disputed.  From my experience, I am far more inclined to believe that there is a strong link between closet homosexual priesthood and a rigorous upholding of a conservative outdated clerical lifestyle.

I remember as a young priest in Rome being dumbfounded by the numbers of openly camp clerics, including students, priest, lecturers, professors, I met every day at university. No doubt there are closet gay bishops and cardinals too.

Some years later, back in Ireland, in 1988 I attempted to discuss the issue at a forum. My opinion was received with a mix of smart-aleck comment, silence and an arrogant response that there was no foundation to what I was saying.

For the Vatican to respond as it seems to have done in the case of the German Jesuit priest and academic is not at all how to deal with such an important matter.

‘Houston we have a problem.’

Bavarians say emphatic No to Berlin 'big boys'

Yesterday's elections in Bavaria saw the CSU vote drop by 10.5 per cent.

The SPD vote collapsed and they now have the same number of seats in the Munich parliament as newcomers, the far-right AfD.

The SPD, Germany's oldest political party has been in fistfights in another era with another far-right party. 

The Greens increased their vote by 8.9 per cent.

State of parties in new parliament:

SPD 22, Greens 38, Free Voters 27, FDP 11, CSU 85, AfD 22.

It means the CSU has lost its overall majority and will now have to form a coalition, most likely with the Free Voters and the FDP.

'Holy God' why that apostrophe?

What is it about that apostrophe?

Below two examples of how not to use it. And even those, whose first language is not English, are making the mistake.

The bicyle ad appears on a wall in Tavira, Portugal.

And then in the current issue of the Dominican Rosary Newsletter. Why is the plural of Hail Mary Hail Mary's?

Sort of nonsensical, indeed, all nonsensical.

The MP for the 18th century

An excerpt from an article by Andrew Rawnsley in today's guardian.

Clever on two counts.

So we have the Democratic Unionists, a party of just 10 MPs, and one incapable of forming a government in their own relatively small corner of the United Kingdom, talking about their “blood-red lines” and threatening to tear down the temple if they don’t get exactly what they want. 

Or consider Jacob Rees-Mogg. Were it not for the combination of Brexit and a majority-less prime minister, the MP for the 18th century would be little more than a comedic throwback, not the mouthpiece of a cabal dictating demands to the prime minister that cramp her ability to manoeuvre into a viable position.

The end of a reign in Bavaria

There are elections in Bavaria today, where history will be made.

The Christian Social Union, which has held a dominant position in the federal state since the foundation of Federal Republic of Germany, is on course to lose its overall majority.

According to all opinion polls, tomorrow evening the CSU will be in search of coalition partner/s to form a new government in Munich.

The far-right Alternative for Germany AfD is set to enter the Bavarian Parliament. It needs five per cent of the vote but it is heading for 13/14 per cent.

Also the Green Party is expected to do spectacularly well, winning over 19 per cent.

Katharina Schulze is the leader of the Green Party in Bavaria and is proving to be a young dynamic and inspiring figure. 

And The Left Party, Die Linke is also on course to gain entry to parliament.

It appears the big loser on the night will be the CSU, which is the sister party to the ruling CDU.

The SPD, the junior party in the Berlin government will also fare poorly.

Slaves to wealth and power

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

The film 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is vulgar, crude, but it is also funny, with black humour and it certainly has a universal morality tale to it.

The 2013-made film, currently available on Netflix, is based on the true story, more or less, of stockbroker Jordan Belfort.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Belfort. He joins a stockbroking company on Wall Street as a minor minion, learns the trade before setting out to start his own brokerage, selling stocks to vulnerable people. He's a born scam artist. With astonishing speed, the company makes a fortune, branching out to attract wealthy investors and then defrauding them of millions.

At the height of the business the company is employing 1,000 people. They consider themselves masters of the  human race. They have everything  to extremes, wine,  women and song, drugs too.

Eventually, through the combined efforts of the FBI and the regulator, the Securities and Exchange  Commission (SEC),  the bubble is burst.  Instead of mansions, planes, fast cars, and all that goes with such unimaginable wealth, DiCaprio/Belfort  and his buddies head for jail.

They considered themselves to have everything and yet they wanted more. They never had enough. They were worldly-rich but poverty-stricken in wisdom.

Isn't it ironic how the money markets and the stock exchange use the term 'securities' to seduce us into the world of money?

Tomorrow's Gospel (Mark 10: 17- 30) is a well known story: the narrative of the rich young man, who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. He walks away, refusing Jesus's invitation because he is not willing to get rid of his riches. He does everything right except for that one aspect of his life, which makes him a rich man. 

The author of the Book of Wisdom, the Old Testament reading in tomorrow's liturgy, understands that worldly wealth is never the full story, indeed it pales in comparison to genuine wisdom: "I entreated and the spirit of wisdom came to me./I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones;/compared with her, I held riches as nothing./I reckoned no priceless stone to be her peer,/for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand,/and beside her, silver ranks as mud." (Wisdom 7: 7 - 9)

It's easy to be critical of the rich man in tomorrow's Gospel. But money, power and worldly wealth lure us. We can be so easily blinded by them.

But also, it is profoundly annoying and irritating to hear leaders tell us that we have to tighten our belts or warn us against the evils of riches when they themselves live off the fat of the land.

That type of talking is a real problem with churches: on the one hand they stress the dangers of wealth and yet they wield significant power and possess great wealth.

There is always the danger of people of power and wealth patronising the less well-off and talking down to them. It is a real dilemma, and there is urgent need for honest conversation.

I once heard an elderly Dominican priest say that the only hope for the church in Ireland is that it would become a genuinely poor church, stripped of all its power and wealth. Then maybe, in some way or other, the church would be in a position to live and preach the Gospel. Have the churches lost their soul to worldly wealth?

There really are no quick fixes, but at least if we have the good sense and the grace to be aware of the conditions of those who are poor and are struggling to survive, surely we are on the road to be less arrogant and patronising and more empathetic and understanding? 

Pope Francis in 'The Joy of The Gospel' tells us that we are called to hear the cry of the poor. Of course, we also have to respond.

If we genuinely make an effort to do just that we have an opportunity to avoid being slaves to wealth and power.

If only DiCaprio/Belfort had kept a genuine eye out for the poor he might never have spent three years in a federal penitentiary.

The Book of Wisdom tells us that 'all gold is a pinch of sand'. Our real security is to be found in God, caring for all God's creatures, and searching for wisdom.

Oscar Romero: from inquisitor to saint

From the current issue of The Tablet.

It was a horrific re-enactment of the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket in 1170. On 24 March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador was murdered by an assassin’s bullet as he celebrated the Eucharist. For the previous three years, he had denounced injustices in his country and defended human rights.

Romero had garnered international respect for his efforts, earning a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1979. However, he had also sparked vehement opposition from the oligarchy whose economic interests he challenged and the military whose violent repression of any resistance meant thousands kidnapped, tortured, and executed.

Things were no different inside of his own Catholic Church. For while many of the poor faithful thronged to the cathedral to hear his homilies, wealthy Catholics would take out ads in local newspapers declaring him a communist or the Devil’s aide. Priests, nuns, and catechists involved in the Church on the ground saw the archbishop as their champion, while members of the Salvadoran bishops’ conference saw him as a puppet who was leading the Church into perdition.This division within the Church explains why, in an era that saw more saints declared than in all previous Christian history, Romero’s canonisation kept getting delayed.

Officially, the final hurdle was clarifying the nature of Romero’s murder. Was it a martyr’s death due to “hatred of the faith” or was it merely political? In reality however, the twists and turns of the process revolved around the concern of many in the Vatican not only about Romero himself but about liberation theology and the extent to which he embodied it. Untangling this relationship tells us much about the new saint and how his canonisation represents a de facto landmark recognition of liberation theology as an important way for modern believers to live a faith that addresses the social crises of our times.

Liberation theology blossomed in El Salvador much like its rich coffee beans—mainly in rural areas and harvested by poor campesinos who eked out a bare subsistence under harsh conditions. In towns such as Suchitoto, Tecoluca, and Aguilares, pioneering priests such as Inocencio “Chencho” Alas, David Rodriguez and Rutilio Grande formed small groups in which people gathered to read the Bible in order to shine light on their own reality. What they never expected was how that reality would in turn teach them to understand the Bible and their faith in new ways.

The most important effect of liberation theology was to end the fatalism that had characterised colonial Catholicism for centuries. No longer did these campesinos understand their poverty and the malnutrition of their children as ordained by God. No longer was faith understood as the mere endurance of this life’s hardships in the hope of relief in the next. The Gospel truly became the “good news” of God’s will that all human beings should flourish in peace and in just relationships in this life as a foretaste of the fullness in the next. Believers did not just “pray, pay and obey”. They organised and worked to make the world look more like the reign of God that Jesus preached.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) led to dramatic changes to global Catholicism. However, it was the 1968 meeting of Latin America’s bishops in Medellín, Colombia, that marked the birth of liberation theology.  Medellín’s trailblazing documents on justice, peace, and poverty were followed in 1971 by Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation. It gave a name to a movement that would spark hope across the continent.

In El Salvador, Archbishop Luis Chávez (1938-1977) had embraced the direction given to the Church by Vatican II and Medellín. He encouraged young priests to go to the Latin American Pastoral Institute (IPLA) in Quito, Ecuador, and study the Church’s new pastoral initiatives. What started with bible studies blossomed into small base communities and cooperatives. Educational centres were established to train the campesino leaders, the Delegates of the Word, who were emerging from the base communities. In 1970, a pastoral week in San Salvador brought together these catechists, Religious, and priests from around the country. They would be the nucleus for the Church’s new direction.

Though he attended the pastoral week, Oscar Romero, then auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, was wary of the “Medellinistas,” and in the first half of the decade, he would become an outspoken critic. Behind the scenes, he sent a 1975 memo to Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, decrying the politicisation of El Salvador’s priests. As one biographer put it, Romero during this period was a “little inquisitor”. The next few years would see a dramatic change.

In 1974, Romero was named bishop of Santiago de María, a rural diocese in coffee-growing areas that saw campesinos come from around the country to find work at harvest time. Conditions were harsh, the winter nights in the hills were cold, and the workers were often abused by landowners who treated them like animals. It was here that Romero began to see the world with new eyes. As he travelled around his diocese, the reality of poverty struck him like never before.

One of the leading formation centers for lay catechists, “Los Naranjos”, operated in his diocese. In addition to courses in the Bible and church teaching, there were also courses on history, politics and economics. The campesinos were invited to live their faith with a new consciousness about the world around them. Centres such as Los Naranjos became an epicenter for a liberation theology characterised by this pastoral approach.

Though initially deeply suspicious of the teaching going on at Los Naranjos, Romero began to see the sincerity of the faith shown by teachers and students alike. Then, in June of 1975, five farmworkers who had been trained at Los Naranjos were savagely massacred in the village of Tres Calles. Romero spoke to the widows whose husbands and sons were murdered. In a private letter to President Molina, he wrote about how their tears had broken his heart. He began to realise the underlying causes of poverty and injustice. However, at this point he could go only so far. When priests of the diocese urged him to take a public stand on the massacre, he demurred. He preferred to work privately in back channel communications, lest there be any scandal.

The seeds had been planted and the roots were taking hold, but only after another dramatic event would the world see the blossoming of the internal changes going on in Romero’s life. On 12 March 1977, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was murdered along with Nelson Lemus and Manuel Solorzano. For many in the base communities, it was an almost apocalyptic moment. Their beloved “Fr Tilo” had been taken away. Little did anyone expect that the one to inherit Grande’s mantle would be the new Archbishop of San Salvador.

Romero made two bold decisions after the Grande assassination that revealed a changed man. He made the memorial Mass for the three victims held on the Sunday after their death the only Mass in the entire archdiocese. Moreover, he declared that he would not attend any governmental events until the murders were investigated to his satisfaction.

This meant he would boycott the inauguration of the incoming president, General Humberto Romero. Fellow bishops were furious. They blasted him for “politicising” the faith. Romero responded by asking when it had become not political for an archbishop to bless the inauguration of a president. Romero had come to understand the powerful ways that the Church had been used to legitimate an unjust state. The remainder of his ministry would be spent upending that role.

Oscar Romero was no professional theologian. He did not publish books, nor did he hold a university position. However, in his three years as archbishop, the homilies Romero gave in the cathedral every Sunday – broadcast live on the radio and listened to avidly throughout the country – combined the most honest reports and assessment of what was really happening in El Salvador with a powerful theological vision. The key to that vision lay in his overcoming of the dualisms in the theology he had learned decades earlier. Rather than fleeing the world, Romero discovered that it is precisely in the world where God’s presence is discovered. “The element of transcendence that ought to raise the Church toward God,” he wrote, “can be realised and lived out only if it is in the world of men and women.”

Time and again, Romero would emphasise that human or earthly liberation, though not identical with the full liberation that Christianity preached, was not separate from it either. For this reason, believers need to be active in making the world more just. “Those who want to be co-partners in the promises of eternity,” he wrote, “have to collaborate with God in establishing justice, peace and love in this kingdom on Earth.”

For Romero, the model for how to seek this liberation was Jesus Christ himself. From the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, Romero saw three important criteria for the Church’s mission in the world. First, it must denounce sin. Of course, this term signified personal failings such as greed and selfishness. But Romero’s great realisation was that sin has a social dimension. The repression he saw in Santiago de Maria, which lay behind the murders of Grande, Solorzano, Lemus and so many others, and the causes of the poverty that condemned the campesinos to harsh lives and early deaths, all were the consequences of a system that had to be denounced as sinful.

In light of that “structural sin”, the Church, like Jesus, must proclaim a good news, particularly to those who are poor or marginalised. Commitment to solidarity with the poor has to take centre stage in the life of faith. It must make a preferential option for the poor, even if, when the Church does act in solidarity, it endures persecution.

Romero paid the ultimate price for living out his faith. His sanctity and life of prayer resonate with so many of the saints from the past. However, his legacy speaks to our time in a special way. His realisation of the reality of structural sin inspired a profound discipleship dedicated to human liberation.

The weakest in society were the guide to his ministry. He did not forge a “middle way” between an oppressive military on one hand and Marxist guerrillas on the other. He committed himself and his Church uncompromisingly to the liberation of the poor, and in that commitment revealed what true faith looks like in the world today.

Michael E. Lee is Associate Professor of Theology at Fordham University, New York.