SAINT ÓSCAR ROMERO. Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985, 2020. Pp. 223. $28.00 pb. ISBN 978-1-62698-362-5. Reviewed by Arthur J. KUBICK, Pawtucket, RI.

There is (almost) nothing new here—and yet everything is (once again) new.  The cover of this Anniversary Edition now proclaims that it is Saint Óscar Romero who is the voice of the voiceless in these four Pastoral Letters and other statements.  Included also are the original reflections by Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Martín-Baró.  Entirely new is the excellent Introduction by Michael E. Lee bringing together the theological and pastoral development in Romero’s pastoral letters.  It is a valuable addition to our understanding of Romero’s pastoral and theological writings as they developed over the three years of his episcopal ministry.  The decision to include the original introductory essays by Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Martín-Baró contributes the voices of first-hand witnesses to Romero’s ministry.  In Martín-Baró’s case, it is the witness of a martyr who died with his Jesuit companions and co-workers in November 1989.

I located my original 1985 copy of Voice of the Voiceless and found that I had underlined liberally and made marginal comments throughout (“See, Judge, Act” “Signs of Hope” “empowering the poor” “ministry of accompaniment”).  Reading through the writings again I was struck by a sense of newness: I had read all of this before, but now it had a freshness about it that called out to be read/heard again.  Especially new was re-reading Romero’s Louvain address: “The Political Dimension of the Faith from the Perspective of the Option of the Poor”.  Delivered at the University of Louvain, Belgium, on February 2, 1980—just weeks before his assassination—there is a humble personalism about it that places the reader there in the academic audience listening to a pastor outline his vision for a church incarnated in the world of the poor.

 This vision is especially relevant in our own world divided by ideologies and inequality.  The corona virus pandemic has highlighted these while bringing out the selfless compassion of so many. We are forty years away from that Louvain address, yet Romero still speaks to a broken world that continues to be divided between rich and poor: “the world that the church ought to serve is, for us, the world of the poor.”  I needed to be reminded once again that our faith is rooted in historical reality; in fact, as we move deeper into this presidential election cycle, the political dimension of the faith becomes more and more significant.  As Romero said in Louvain—and lived in his ministry: “but it is rather in the actual practice of service to the poor that the political dimension of the faith is to be found.”  Living this requires a continual practice of reflection-action-reflection; it implies community, each of us involved to the extent we are able.

Michael Lee’s introduction to this Anniversary Edition calls attention to Romero’s thinking about the gospel as well as living it in profound ways.  He reminds us that Romero’s theology was always contextual, concerned about responding to the concrete historical situation in El Salvador.  Important here is Romero’s understanding of transcendence.  Lee points out how this develops during the three years of Romero’s episcopal ministry.  After his First Pastoral Letter was issued on Easter Sunday 1977, the other three were proclaimed on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6 of 1977, 1978 and 1979—the patronal feast of El Salvador.  Entering into the enfleshed historical reality of the world, grace abounds and calls us to move beyond the systemic social sin of that world—to transform brokenness into wholeness.  As the body of Christ in history, the church must “proclaim the Reign of God—especially to the poor; call everyone to conversion; and finally denounce sin.”  For Michael Lee “it is no exaggeration to say that Romero and his Salvadoran church embody the very transformations that were taking place in global Catholicism.”  How does that call to embodied transcendence challenge readers/hearers of that twentieth century word here in the twenty-first century?

An interesting exercise might be to read Romero’s “Letter to President Carter” (February 17, 1980), and then write one’s own letter to the current U.S. president (Donald Trump? Joe Biden?)  Reading this book review may begin to be a step toward embodying that political dimension of the faith from the perspective of the option for the poor.  Romero continues to challenge us.  Saint Óscar Romero, Presente!