Romero: A Life

Overview

"Let my death, if it is accepted by God, be for my people's liberation and as a witness of hope in the future...A bishop will die, but God's church, which is the people, will never perish." --Oscar Romero

More than forty years have passed since Oscar Romero, the prophetic archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated while celebrating Mass. In death he joined tens of thousands of his fellow Salvadorans, killed in the conflict that engulfed his small Central American nation. Since then, his reputation and significance have only grown: today the very name Romero invokes the church's costly option for the poor, the gospel challenge to confront injustice, the Christian call to discipleship in a world of conflict, and a new face of holiness for our time.

First published in 1989, James Brockman's biography remains the definitive portrait of the modern hero and martyr who became "a voice of the voiceless."

James R. Brockman, who died in 1996, was a Jesuit priest and a former editor of America magazine.