By Kathleen Kern

“We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.”

Moments after he preached those words at a hospital in San Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero consecrated wafers and wine for the Eucharist. As he lifted the chalice before those attending the mass, an assassin shot him in the chest.

The killing probably occurred in response to a radio homily Romero delivered the day before, in which he told Salvadoran military personnel, “No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God.”

Hundreds of people had already died at the hands of the Salvadoran military when several officers planned the assassination of Romero. But his death on March 24, 1980, was the final straw for Salvadorans who hoped that change could happen through legal means. A 12-year civil war broke out in which more than 70,000 Salvadorans lost their lives.

On Sept. 3, 2004, based on the testimonies of 14 witnesses, a judge in Fresno, Calif., found Salvadoran Air Force Capt. Alvaro Saravia liable for arming and paying a gunman to kill Romero. Calling the murder “a crime against humanity,” Judge Wanger ordered Saravia, who has lived quietly in the U.S. for 17 years, to pay $10 million to Romero’s brother. When he announced the monetary award, Wanger said, “the damages are of a magnitude hardly describable.”

The verdict was the first time anyone was held responsible for the assassination of Romero. It strengthened the case of Salvadorans who have called for the repeal of a 1993 amnesty law in El Salvador that protected mass murderers.

The outcome of the trial fills me with hope. I am the citizen of the country that trained — at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. — two of the three officers implicated in the assassination of Romero. Two presidents, Carter and Reagan, authorized millions of dollars in military aid to the Salvadoran military, which used it to commit atrocities.

On Sept. 3, 2004, I became the citizen of a country with a judicial system that held accountable those who have committed mass torture, rape and murder. My country’s judicial system provided a venue for truth. My country’s judicial system said the United States would no longer be a safe haven for those who commit heinous crimes in their own countries. My country’s judicial system upheld the honor of a man who was a voice for the voiceless in the last three years of his life.

Rereading Romero’s homilies and writings also gives me hope. Despite the atrocities Romero witnessed and his assumption that enemies would kill him, he proclaimed that those who follow Jesus would prevail over powers and principalities that ruled through terror. He said that if he died, he would be resurrected in the Salvadoran people. He placed hope in these people when he preached, “If some day . . . they kill all the priests and the bishop too, and you are left a people without priests, each one of you must become God’s microphone, each one of you must become a prophet.”

At Sunday mass the day before he died, Romero said, “Easter is itself now the cry of victory. No one can quench that life that Christ has resurrected. Neither death nor all the banners of death and hatred raised against him and against his church can prevail. . . . All our environment proclaims the cross. But those who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this Calvary of El Salvador lies our Easter, our resurrection. That is the Christian people’s hope.”