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  • Archbishop Romero: Martyr and Prophet for the New Millennium
  • Michael E. Lee
Pelton, Robert, C.S.C. (Ed.) Archbishop Romero: Martyr and Prophet for the New Millennium. (Scranton: University of Scranton Press. Distributed by the University of Chicago Press. 2006. Pp. xxii, 89. $12.00 paperback.)

This volume represents the latest fruit of perhaps the most sustained North American reflection on Archbishop Oscar Romero by one institution, the University of Notre Dame's annual "Romero Lectures." It contains seven essays generated from a conference to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Romero's 1980 assassination. These essays not only assess Romero's legacy, but consider the present and future import of that legacy in the areas of law, theology, and history.

The editor's preface provides an important recounting of the 2004 U.S. District Court case that found Alvaro Rafael Savaria legally liable for his involvement [End Page 468] in Romero's assassination. He rightly points out how this outcome will have important precedence for future cases in which perpetrators of human rights violations seek to hide behind plausible deniability.

Kevin Burke, S.J., and Barbara Reid, O.P., offer theological reflection on the ecclesiological import of remembering Romero's life and the prophetic nature of his preaching, respectively. The next two essays present the best material for a more properly historical assessment of Romero's legacy. Written by Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez, Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador since 1982, and by Ricardo Urioste Bustamante, Vicar General to Romero, these essays utilize personal anecdotes and reference to magisterial documents that help Romero studies move from the hagiographical to a more considered claim about Romero's episcopacy. Far from a romantic, rebellious, or heterodox figure, Archbishop Romero emerges as a priest and bishop influenced deeply by ecclesial documents of Vatican II, Paul VI, and CELAM. Moreover, Romero represents a model of the type of bishop described in John Paul II's reflections and needed in this period of globalization.

The book concludes with both Lawrence Cunningham's illuminating essay on the shift in understanding necessary in cases like Romero where martyrs are killed by other Christians rather than for an odium fidei, and Margaret Guider's set of reflections on pastoral application of the conference's themes. While not a groundbreaking study on Romero, this volume demonstrates the value of continuing reflection on an important martyr-bishop.

Michael E. Lee
Fordham University
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