Romero spirit invoked to help Colombia

A LEADING Colombian activist has described the late Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador as an inspiration for peacemakers everywhere at a series of talks to mark Romero Week 2016.

Fr Francisco de Roux SJ, who addressed meetings in Edin­burgh, Leeds and Manchester and preached at the annual Romero service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London last Saturday, entreated Catholics to support international peace efforts.

Archbishop Romero was Archbishop of San Salvador when he spoke out in support of his country’s poorest citizens. He was murdered while saying Mass on 24 March 1980.

Fr de Roux said Colombia was suffering a deep spiritual crisis. “For 50 years we have destroyed our human values through thousands of kidnappings, massacres, anti-personnel mines, extra-judicial killings, disappearances and displacement,” he said. “A cult of violence has grown up that becomes almost a kind of religion.”

The Jesuit is a leading campaigner for a peaceful resolution of the civil conflict. He described the peace and development programme he started in Magdalena Medio, Colombia, and the opposition he faced from left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries, who killed 27 members of his team.

He said that the peace negotiations currently under way in the Cuban capital, Havana, between the Colombian Government and the main guerrilla group, the Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) were only the beginning of “an extremely challenging process of peace-building”.

He called on those inspired by Romero to support work for peace: “Thirty-six years ago you had the courage and wisdom to support Óscar Romero. Now he is asking you, in the name of Jesus, to continue to support peace activists, Christians and non-Christians alike, who believe in a non-violent struggle for peace, justice and love,” he said.