Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7664 Plough Quarterly • Winter 2015 the events for the Salvadoran bishops. Looking back, the priests reflect: “It is true; he did some- thing. It was an energetic protest and a strong denouncement.” On the other hand, however, “it was not public. It was private, since he still believed that denunciations from authority to authority were more effective.” Later that year, in December 1975, Pope Paul VI published his apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, linking evangelization in the modern world to prophetic denuncia- tions of poverty and oppression. To many in Latin America, it sounded as if the pope was echoing Medellín’s declaration of a preferential option for the poor. According to those close to Romero at the time, Paul VI’s words prompted him to reconsider the high priority he had given to maintaining good relations between the church and the government. In the face of state-sponsored violence against his people, and the vilification of his clergy for educating and defending them, Romero gradually came to accept ­ Medellín’s discernment that God was calling the Latin American church to support and defend the poor. Romero’s Social Conversion: The Death of Rutilio Grande Romero’s role in the dismissal of the Jesuits as directors of El Salvador’s diocesan seminary in 1972 was only the latest in a series of skirmishes between conservative Salvadoran bishops and the Jesuits. Already in 1970, the bishops had rejected the nomination of the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande as rector of the seminary in response to the Jesuits’ Medellín-inspired agenda there, according to Rodolfo Cardenal, a Jesuit priest. Father Grande reacted to this vote of no confidence by taking a leave of absence from the seminary faculty to study new pasto- ral approaches in Peru. When he returned in September 1972, around the time of Romero’s takeover of the seminary from the Jesuits, his services as a professor were no longer required had to go.” Romero added ominously, “If they’re not removed, we reserve the right to take other measures.” This was a threat (at least in part) to bring the matter to the attention of Vatican offi- cials, something Romero actually did on this and other issues. In the end, the Jesuits were removed after fifty years of service and “Mon- señor Romero took charge of the seminary.” Pico says, “He was satisfied. Orthodoxy had tri- umphed.” Years later Archbishop Romero would apologize to Father Amando López (formerly part of the seminary faculty) for his role in pushing the Jesuits out of the seminary. But in 1972, he was content. Romero’s Personal Conversion: Santiago de María In 1974, Romero was named bishop of a rural diocese about seventy miles southeast of San Salvador called Santiago de María in Usulután. Here he would remain for the next three years. During this period, something in Romero began to change. His coworkers would later point to Romero’s encounter with the terrible suffering of rural farm workers as decisive; these experi- ences opened his heart and mind to Medellín’s preferential option for the poor.13 Still, Romero wasn’t ready for public con- frontations. At one o’clock in the morning on June 21, 1975, members of the National Guard entered Tres Calles, a village in Romero’s diocese, ransacking the houses of five farm workers in a search for weapons and murder- ing the unarmed men in front of their families. Zacarias Diez and Juan Macho, Passionist priests working in the diocese, recall that they and other colleagues told Romero, “We must do something, bishop,”14 and proposed several forms of public response. “But Monseñor was on another wavelength and didn’t think like us.” Instead, Romero wrote an anguished letter to his friend President Molina and a summary of 13 Interview of Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez by Robert Lassalle-Klein, San Salvador, November 12, 2009. 14 James R. Brockman, Romero: A Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 61. Father Rutilio Grande (July 5, 1928– March 12, 1977) 1974–1977 1977