Ignacio Ellacuria wrote,"with Mons. Romero God is past for El Salvador".

Mons. Oscar Romero represents the history of another church, less known, not one of the hierarchy, but that of the People of God, made of people before that of priests who have married, in the name of God, the case of the oppressed, fighting and dying to their side.


Romero was killed by a shot to the heart on March 24 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called "La Divina Providencia", one day after a sermon where he had called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights.


Archbishop Oscar Romero-The Last Sermon-23 March 1980



"I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood.
In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I IMPLORE you, I BEG you, I ORDER you in the name of GOD: STOP THE REPRESSION".


Mons. Romero was shot while holding up the Eucharist.



Reported the Last Sermon-23 March 1980 and the last words of Oscar Romero, said at a hospital Mass shortly before an assassin entered via a back door and shot him.

(Original audio-recording of a Sister present at the Mass).