The beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero is a watershed moment in the recovery of a fundamental truth. The key question that Romero’s life and death asks of the faithful everywhere is whether the Christian duty to evangelise and the Christian calling to be holy are inseparable from the Christian duty to work for a better world by opposing exploitation and injustice. The easy answer, from generations of church leaders and teachers, was to treat the work for justice as optional – admirable, but not for everyone. That is no longer tenable.Ever since Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio in 1967, a theological convergence between evangelisation and work for justice has been discernible, though often with two steps forward and one step back. The Church’s recognition of Rom