Scott Wright > Quotes

“Alone we are miracles, together we are miraculous.”
― Scott Wright, Sunflower Circle

“I am glad, brothers and sisters, that our church is persecuted precisely for its preferential option for the poor and for trying to become incarnate on behalf of he poor. And I want to say to all the people, to rulers, to the rich and powerful: If you do not become poor, if you do not concern yourselves for the poverty of our people, as though they were your own family, you will not be able to save society.” —July 15, 1979”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Romero was like St. Vincent de Paul—a mass of poor people always followed him around. Of course, with his way of thinking, he always got the rich people to pay alms so that he could give them to the poor. That way the poor could have some relief for their problems and the rich could relieve their consciences.48”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Civilians, not insurgents, were the principal victims of this war; the poor who lived in rural areas were especially hard hit. Little attempt was made by the government to address the structural injustice that was the cause of the conflict. What reforms they attempted were secondary to the massive repression of the people.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Poverty for the poor of El Salvador, and the poor of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, means death, and those who do not die slowly from hunger and disease, die quickly from violence and repression. That has been the fate of the poor in El Salvador for a very long time.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“He never wrote down his homilies. Never. It seemed like he did, but he didn’t. The most he ever took to the cathedral was an outline, a letter-sized sheet of paper with two or three ideas written down. It makes me laugh when someone who never knew Monseñor Romero says that other people used to write his sermons. If anyone wrote them, it was the Holy Spirit!226”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Romero is a prophet, saint, and martyr for our time. His death, like that of Jesus of Nazareth, was the dramatic conclusion of a life lived in fidelity to God that brought him into conflict with the political authorities of his nation.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“But the days when the people could demonstrate peacefully were over. El Salvador was on the eve of civil war, and Romero did everything he could to prevent it.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“What has happened to the people of El Salvador since the end of the war? Many who were poor before the war are even poorer today. The poor live on the edge of life in a daily struggle to survive. Those who did not die during the war wage a daily battle against poverty, hunger, and disease. The violence of the war and death squad assassinations has given way to a more subtle, but pervasive, criminal violence and gang activity.24”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Oscar was the second of eight children in a family of six boys and two girls. His sister Zaida recalled the order: “There was Gustavo, then Oscar, Zaida, Aminta, who died when she was little, Romulo, who died when he was older, Mamerto, Arnoldo, and Gaspar.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“His father, however, did not want Romero to continue his studies but to learn a trade. He was apprenticed by his father to one of the local carpenters, where he learned to make doors and tables,”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Blessed are the poor, for they know that their riches are in the One who being rich made himself poor in order to enrich us with his poverty, teaching us the Christian’s true wisdom.” —January 29, 1978”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“is made of the “conversion” of Oscar Romero to the poor upon the death of his friend, Father Rutilio Grande, who was assassinated on March 12, 1977. The word “conversion” is used to mean “a turning point” in Romero’s life. Jon Sobrino makes this point: “I think that, as Archbishop Romero stood gazing at the mortal remains of Rutilio Grande, the scales fell from his eyes.”91 Ignacio Martin-Baro, one of the six Jesuit martyrs, makes a similar point: “For Romero, the assassination of Father Grande…was the crucial moment in his conversion: the road to Aguilares was to be his road to Damascus.”92”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“In the words of Jon Sobrino, Romero has become “the most universal Christian at the end of the twentieth century.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“With the younger girls it was worse. After having them like that, tied up like iguanas, they did vulgar things to them. They stood in line for their turn, as though they were possessed by the devil, and they violated them, you know, in their private parts. One man after another raped them.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“I repeat what I told you once before when we feared we might be left without a radio station: God’s best microphone is Christ, and Christ’s best microphone is the church, and the church is all of you.” —January 27, 1980”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“The motivation of love motivates us to give our lives for others. In sum, Rutilio Grande embodied all three of these, and “died loving others,” pardoning his enemies. “Who knows if the murderers that have now fallen into excommunication are listening to a radio in their hideout, listening, in their conscience to this word. We want to tell you, murderous brothers, that we love you and that we ask of God repentance for your hearts, because the church is not able to hate.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Throughout his life, he continued to rely on the Jesuits for spiritual direction and confession. When he became a bishop, he took a phrase from the spiritual exercises, Sentir con la Iglesia—“to be of one mind and heart with the Church”—as his episcopal motto.44”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state betrays the gospel’s call…A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens—as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper—that is the preaching of Christ, calling Wake up! Be converted!” —January 22, 1978”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“We live in a time of saints and martyrs. The twentieth century created more victims of war and terror, but it also gave birth to more saints and martyrs than any other century.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Romero’s assassination in 1980 drew attention to another phenomenon of the conflict: the persecution of the church. Nine months after Romero’s assassination, the Salvadoran National Guard killed three North American nuns and one laywoman. Between 1977 and 1989, a dozen and a half priests were killed, including six Jesuits assassinated along with their housekeeper and her daughter on November 16, 1989.”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Peasants without land and without steady employment, without running water or electricity in their homes, without medical assistance when mothers give birth, and without schools for their children…Factory workers who have no labor rights, and who get fired from their jobs if they demand such rights, human beings who are at the mercy of cold economic calculations…Mothers and the wives of those who have disappeared, or who are political prisoners…Shantytown dwellers, whose wretchedness defies imagination, suffering the permanent mockery of the mansion nearby.216”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, who succeeded Romero as Archbishop of San Salvador, also believes the death of Rutilio Grande was the key moment in Romero’s transformation: One martyr gave life to another martyr. Before the cadaver of Father Rutilio Grande, Monseñor Romero, in his twentieth day as archbishop, felt that call of Christ to overcome his natural human timidity and to be filled with the fortitude of the apostle. From that moment, Monseñor Romero left behind the pagan lands of Tyre and Sidon and marched with freedom toward Jerusalem.93”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Your word is pardon and gentleness for the penitent, Your word is holy instruction, eternal teaching; It is light to brighten, advice to hearten; It is voice of help, fire that burns, Way, truth, sublime splendor, Life—eternity.” —Poem written in the minor seminary”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography

“Faith and politics ought to be united in a Christian who has a political vocation, but they are not to be identified [as one]…Faith ought to inspire political action, not be mistaken for it”
― Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography