Oscar Romero
On the 24 th March, which this year is Palm Sunday, the Church of England’s calendar of instructs us to remember a martyr. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, perhaps, except that this martyr was the Archbishop of San Salvador who was martyred only in 1980. Oscar Romero is commemorated in the Church of England’s calendar, and stands together with other twentieth century Christian martyrs, on the west front of Westminster Abbey. In El Salvador, Romero is known as San Romero (Saint Romero). But Romero is not formally commemorated by his own Roman Catholic Church. Oscar Arnulfo Romero was born on 15 th August 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, a mountain town in eastern El Salvador accessible only on foot or by animal. The second of seven children, his family grew some crops and his father worked at the local telegraph office. After the maximum three years at state school, he had a tutor and was also apprenticed to learn carpentry. As a ch...