Today, 36 years ago, where were you when Oscar Romero was riddled by bullets and assassinated while celebrating Eucharist? As a kid, I was totally shocked to hear how in the Lives of the Saints there were a couple of priests who spoke Truth to the King (Power) and were taken out while celebrating Eucharist.
How the US War on Drugs has really been a War on People through the militarization of countries such as Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Mexico and Colombia. In Colombia, paramilitaries have been set up and funded by corporations such as Chiquita. The US has given billions (of our taxpayers' money) to corrupt dictatorial governments who fund these paramilitaries and commit murder in the most heinous manner against the people of God. Our sisters and brothers (the poor and indigenous) are living in "occupied" countries where they are not safe to live out their lives with their God-given freedom and autonomy. Their lands, resources and very lives are being stolen by these evil Powers.
Our sister priests in Colombia are living in an occupied country. Let's hear from them...
Why is this happening? Multinational global corporations want the people's land and resources. The US Army School of the Americas has trained thousands of Latin American officers-soldiers who are the bullies that do the "dirty work" of terrorizing, murdering, raping, the people. It's usually not in the newspapers. However, today is the 36th anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero. He learned to struggle with conscience through priest Rutillio Grande. But it wasn't until Archbishop Romero held his friend's bullet ridden body that he learned he had a voice and that voice must proclaim the Truth of the Gospels to the soldiers and the corrupt government. (funded by the way once again by US taxpayers $$).
Long live the Truth-telling of the Gospels from the people!
From longtime prophet Roy Bourgeois: "It's about guns and greed." From world renowned Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann, (my teacher at Notre Dame): "Follow the money."
SOA Watch and Human Rights groups have been sharing this information for years, but it has only made the papers in the US relatively recently.
As we write out the modern day Stations of the Cross for Good Friday, we have material aplenty from our sisters and brothers who are living under the more recent Roman Empire and who are being crucified and being abandoned by the rest of the world ...
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