[Ruby] A glimpse of the aftermath of the funeral for Archbishop Monseñor Romero

When I was doing some research, I came upon a remarkable video of the funeral of Monseñor Oscar Romero. So I thought I'd share it here. But first, a little background.

Romero was skeptical at first of what role the Church should play in the political struggle that was heating up the second half of the 1970's. He eventually became convinced that the government was committing atrocities and he worked to try to bring an end to the human rights abuses. Many individuals sought his help to find their missing family members, or to seek the release of political prisoners. Romero urged a group of women to form a committee, and so in 1977 CoMadres was started. For the next few years, Romero helped the Committee of Mothers, CoMadres, enormously. One way he supported them and furthered their work was by weekly publicizing the evidence they collected of deaths, detentions, and torture on his Sunday radio broadcast. 


Monseñor Romero wrote to President Jimmy Carter, imploring him to stop funding the war. He even pleaded, then demanded that soldiers stop carrying out their orders to torture, mutilate, and kill innocent civilians. The government, controlled by the oligarchy, could not abide these actions, and so he was assassinated. But this wasn't enough. When an estimated 250,000 people poured into the park and adjoining streets outside of the National Cathedral for his funeral in March, 1980, the military responded by firing smoke bombs and shooting on the gathering. The message was unmistakable; the government had complete power and total disregard for the lives of peasants, as it had for Archbishop Romero himself. This video shows film taken that day. 

The crowd gathered for Romero's funeral.

http://youtu.be/EN6LWdqcyuc