The Archbishop Who Called the Powerful to Account

On March 23, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero stood in the Cathedral of San Salvador and did something that would cost him his life. He spoke directly to the soldiers and judges of El Salvador — men who had used their authority to terrorize the poor rather than protect them. Peasant farmers were disappearing. Families were burying children pulled from their beds at night. The courts offered no justice. The powerful shielded one another while the vulnerable bled.

Romero's voice carried across the radio waves into every village and barracks in the country: "In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people, I ask you, I beg you, I order you — stop the repression." He reminded those in power that their authority was not their own. It had been entrusted to them, and the Most High would demand an accounting.

The next evening, a single bullet struck Romero at the altar while he celebrated Mass.

Psalm 82 captures this same confrontation. The Almighty rises in the great assembly and addresses those who hold power over human lives: "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?" God charges them to defend the weak, the fatherless, the oppressed. Their seats of authority were never thrones of personal privilege — they were posts of sacred responsibility. And when the powerful forget whom they serve, the God who appointed them does not forget those they abandoned.