March 24th, 2005, marks the 25th anniversary of the assassination of the Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero. He was killed in 1980 while saying mass in the capital of San Salvador, struck down in church by a bullet fired from the gun of a right-wing death squad member. Romero’s “crime” was helping the poor and advocating an end to war and political repression. Just a day before his murder, he directly appealed to the Salvadoran armed forces: “Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. …In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression”

Monseñor Romero was not the only one to perish at the hands of rightist death squads, tens of thousands of innocent civilians were tortured, maimed, and killed. Every year on this day, millions of Salvadorans throughout El Salvador and the world, remember their slain Archbishop. With flowers and prayers, the people remember the humble man of peace. They recite his words and homilies over his tomb in the San Salvador cathedral. In 1994 I was asked by the independent political journal, CrossRoads, to illustrate the cover of their special issue on El Salvador. I created an original Lithograph titled El Salvador Presente (El Salvador is Present - click here for a larger view). The 14″ x 18″ print was created in the traditional way, drawing directly on a limestone slab and then transferring the drawing to paper by running the stone through a press. My artwork portrays people carrying crosses in a street demonstration, with one cross bearing the name of the martyred Archbishop.

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