Exactly 38 years after Salva-doran Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed by a sniper’s bullet during Mass at a cancer hospital, his country’s embassy in Belgium screened a documentary about the cleric’s life on March 24.
Called Desagravio (The Reparation), it highlighted the main achievements of the campaigner for social justice, his 25 years of pastoral service to the diocese of San Miguel, and his untimely murder, telesurf.net reports.
The documentary, co-directed by Patrick Soergel from Switzer-land and Italy’s Gianni Beretta, starts with Romero’s birth in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador, in August 1917 and concludes with his assassination.
He died in 1980, the year the country embarked on a 12-year civil war, prompting what sources from the Archdiocese of El Salvador called seven years of “pastoral famine.” They described him as “a voice for the voice-less.”
Romero was reportedly killed by forces unhappy with his outbursts against the military government. One day before he was shot, he addressed local soldiers and implored them to “stop the repression” against rural people.
