Okay, I'll admit it, I'm only halfway through this book, which I picked up in an Oxfam bin some weeks ago, but I feel compelled to review it already. Romero, A Life is a re-edition of a 1982 books entitled The Word Remains, A Life of Oscar Romero.
I had picked it up in order to round up my knowledge of Liberation Theology and I got a lot more than I bargained for. The book is extraordinarily contextual and practical. It reminds me of Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist, but this time the issue is linked to Land Reforms in El Salvador. In short, the campesinos had no land and no resources, while a few families of large landowners were growing sugar cane for profit in giant fields, on the best land.
The book, because it is written by a serious researcher, exposes numerous chunks of material: the homilies of the priests of that time, the letters sent to Romero by the campesinos, excerpts from the reactionary press and its attempts to drag the Church back to the pre-Vatican II and Pre-Medellin apolitical position they knew.
I absolutely love this material, it makes Liberation Theology come alive in a way in which no other book had done for me before. It does not contain theories, and zero exortations for the reader: all the examples refer to things that were done practically, and words that were practically spoken from the pulpit by the protagonists of the time.
This book is an extraordinary resource. For the first time, I felt that Liberation Theology was not some vague flavour which we sometimes notice in the writings of some contemporary authors, it was not a beautifully written book which tries to convince a scholarly audience of the value of the Church of the Poor. Liberation Theology was done on a daily basis.
In the El Salvador of the late 1970's, it was everywhere. Going to church in that period was a totally different experience than the stuff we are exposed to these days. And Brockman, writing in 1982, does a grand job of transporting the reader into that period: if you had been there, that's what you would have heard preached; if you had been there, that's what you would have read in the paper; if you had been there, that's what you would believe about God, and about Salvation.
There are too many chunks of great material in this book for me to cite them all, but I'm happy to re-type one of them, in this instance, an exerpt from a series which the Jesuits of the time published in a national newpaper (before the national newspapers stopped accepting articles from them):
The church is trying to be faithful to the example of Christ, making itself one of the dispossesed and sharing their lives. The church is becoming displeasing and distressing for those who have privileges and economic power. The church preaches the good news and proclaims the truth, and that truth is disturbing. The Church interprets in the light of the good news the concrete situation that it lives in, and its word causes indignation. The church -that is, Christians- tries to live in agreement with the good news, and its behaviour surprises and angers. The church speaks of justice, and they say it preaches hatred. The church concerns itself for the dignity of the poor, and they say it promotes fratricidal struggles. The church tries to better human society, and it is accused with fury of meddling in what does not concern it. The church, like Jesus, tries to give preference to the poor and deprived, the great majority of Salavadorans; but curiously when it does so they say it is harming the country.
When that kind of material starts appearing in you local broadsheet, please remember to give me a shout.
Incidentally, this book also reconciled me with the profession of academic researcher. I'd always thought that the only sources worth reading were the protagonists: the liberation theologians themselves, the liberationist bishops themselves. Everything else was secondary literature. But let it be said that some secondary literature is awesome, and so well researched that I doubt even our prestigious protagonists could have done much better. Brockman has written an important page of the history of the Universal Church, I hope it doesn't disappear into oblivion. Apparently, Romero, A life is re-edited on a very regular basis, so there is hope.
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