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COMMENTARY
November 6, 2018 | The Valley Catholic
The Courageous Witness of Saints Oscar Romero and Paul VI
By Tony Magliano
Internationally syndicated social jus-
tice and peace columnist
[email protected]
Two very different men, facing different sets of
dire challenges with prophetic courage, faithfully
journeyed along two different paths to the same des-
tination: sainthood!
Who would have predicted it?
Who would have imagined on February 23, 1977, the
day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador,
that the highly conservative Oscar Romero – who was
suspicious of the Catholic Church’s involvement in
political activism – would die a martyr’s death for cou-
rageously defending his people against the murderous
assaults of the Salvadoran government, military and
right-wing death squads?
Romero’s appointment was welcomed by the
government, but many priests were not happy. They
suspected their new archbishop would insist they cut
all ties to liberation theology’s defense of the poor.
However, as Romero started getting to know the
poor and how they were oppressed by the govern-
ment and rich coffee plantation owners, his conscience
seemed to gradually awaken.
But the most important event affecting Romero’s
decision to wholeheartedly stand with the poor and
oppressed was the assassination of his close friend
Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande; who was promoting land
reform, worker unions, and organizing communities to
have a greater voice regarding their own lives.
Romero, who was deeply inspired by Grande said,
“When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought,
‘if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I
too have to walk the same path.’ ”
In a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Romero
warned that continued U.S. military aid to the gov-
ernment of El Salvador “will surely increase injustices
here and sharpen the repression.” Romero asked
Carter to stop all military assistance to the Salvadoran
government.
Carter ignored Romero. And later, President Ronald
Reagan greatly increased military aid.
During his March 23, 1980 Sunday national radio
homily, Romero said, “I would like to make an appeal
in a special way to the men of the army … You kill your
own campesino brothers and sisters … The law of God
must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier
is obliged to obey an order against the law of God …
In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering
people … I beg you … I order you in the name of God:
Stop the repression!”
The next day while celebrating Mass in the chapel of
the hospital compound where he lived, Saint Romero’s
loving heart was pierced with an assassin’s bullet.
With numerous armed conflicts raging in various
parts of the world, and the Vietnam War worsening,
Pope Paul VI on Oct. 4, 1965 proclaimed before the U.N.
General Assembly: “No more war, war never again. It is
peace, peace which must guide the destinies of peoples
and of all mankind.”
Unfortunately, in 1965 the world did not heed Paul
VI’s prophetic words. And sadly, it has not heeded
them since.
Saint Paul VI in his prophetic encyclical letter Popu-
lorum Progressio (“On the Development of Peoples”)
wisely said, “When we fight poverty and oppose
the unfair conditions of the present, we are not just
promoting human well-being; we are also furthering
man’s spiritual and moral development, and hence we
are benefiting the whole human race. For peace is not
simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious
balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed
day after day toward the establishment of the ordered
universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of
justice among men.”
Tony is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings.
Tune into Tony on Relevant Radio’s Bay Area Catholic, KSFB
1260 AM, November 10 at 3 p.m. (Divine Mercy Hour).
Faith and Levity
By Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Theologian, teacher, award-winning
author, and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio, TX
Shusaku Endo, the Japanese author of the classic
novel, Silence (upon which Martin Scorsese based his
movie) was a Catholic who didn’t always find his native
land, Japan, sympathetic to his faith. He was misunder-
stood but kept his balance and good heart by placing a
high value on levity. It was his way of integrating his
faith with his own experience of occasional personal
failure and his way of keeping his perspective on a
culture which misunderstood him. Levity, he believed,
makes faith livable.
He’s right. Levity is what makes faith livable be-
cause humor and irony give us the perspective we need
to forgive ourselves and others for our weaknesses and
mistakes. When we’re too serious there’s no forgive-
ness, least of all for ourselves.
What is humor? What’s its meaning? A generation
ago, Peter Berger wrote a book, A Rumor of Angels, in
which he looked at the question of humor philosophi-
cally. I like his conclusion. In humor, he submits, we
touch the transcendent. To be able to laugh at a situa-
tion, no matter how dire or tragic, shows that we’re in
some way above that situation, that there’s something
in us that’s not imprisoned by that situation, or any
situation.
There’s a wonderful example of this in the writings
of the Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova. During the
purges of Stalin, her husband had been arrested, as had
many others. She occasionally tried to visit the prison
he was in to leave letters and packages for him. Stand-
ing in long lines outside of that prison in St. Petersburg,
she waited alongside other women whose husbands or
sons had also been arrested. The situation bordered on
the absurd. None of them even knew whether their
loved ones were even alive and the guards made them
wait for hours without explanation, often in the cold of
winter. One day, as she was standing in line waiting,
another woman recognized her, approached her, and
asked: “Can you describe this?” Akhmatova replied:
“I can,” and when she said this something like a smile
passed between them.
A smile passed between them. That smile contained
some levity and that allowed them both to realize,
however unconsciously, that they were transcendent
to that situation. The smile that passed between them
alerted them both to the fact that they were more than
what they were in that moment. Awful as it was, they
weren’t ultimately prisoners to that moment. Moreover
that smile was a prophetic and political act of defiance,
based upon faith. Levity is subversive.
This is true too not just for how we live inside
our faith lives; it’s true too for how we live, healthily,
inside our families. A family that’s too serious will
not allow for forgiveness. Its heaviness will eventu-
ally drive its members either into depression or away
from the family. Moreover it will make an idol out of
itself. Conversely, a family that can take itself seriously
but still laugh at itself will be a family where there is
forgiveness because levity will give them a healthy
perspective on their foibles. A family that’s healthy will
sometimes look at itself honestly and with the kind of
smile that passed between Anna Akhmatova and her
friend, say of itself: “Aren’t we pathetic!”
That’s true too of nationalism. We need to take our
nation seriously, even as a certain kind levity keeps
this seriousness in perspective. I’m a Canadian. As
Canadians, we love our country, are proud of it, and
would, if push came to shove, die for it. But we have a
wonderful levity about our patriotism. We make jokes
about it and enjoy it when others make jokes about us.
Consequently we don’t have any bitter controversies
regarding who loves the country and who doesn’t. Our
lightness keeps us in unity.
All of this, of course, is doubly true of faith and
spirituality. Real faith is deep, an indelible brand inside
the soul, a DNA that dictates behavior. Moreover, real
faith does not sidestep the tragic within our lives but
equips us to face the heaviness in life where we meet
disappointment, personal failure, heartbreak, injustice,
betrayal, the breakdown of cherished relationships, the
death of loves ones, sickness, the diminishment of our
own health, and ultimately our own death. This is not
to be confused with any natural or contrived optimism
that refuses to see the dark. Rather real faith, precisely
because it is real and therefore keeps us inchoately
aware of our identity and transcendence, will always
allow us a discreet, knowing, smile, no matter the
situation. Like the English martyr, Thomas More, we
will be able to joke a bit with our executioner and we
will also be able to forgive others and ourselves for
not being perfect.
Our lives often are pathetic. But it’s okay. We can
still laugh with each other! We’re in good hands. The
God who made obviously has a sense of humor – and
therefore understanding and forgiveness.
Too many books on Christian spirituality might
more aptly be entitled: The Unbearable Heaviness of Faith.