Other Books on Romero

Two other books about Romero may be of interest

  • Oscar Romero – Reflections on His Life and Writings  by Marie Dennis, Renny Golden and Scott Wright
    ISBN 1-57075-309-1

Three interesting essays written for the 20th anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom in 2000.  Published by Orbis Books in the US and available to UK readers from online booksellers.

 

  • Archbishop Oscar Romero – A Disciple Who Revealed the Glory of God  by Damian Zynda.
    ISBN 978-1-58966-211-7

This is a very particular study of Archbishop Romero, because it makes careful use both of a distinctive theology – that of the second century theologian St Iraneus, and of a good measure of psychology – from the 20th and 21st centuries. The consistent attempt to respond to grace acting on our limited  humanity gives rise to what Iraneus called “master disciples”, and for Zynda, Romero is a powerful and inspiring example of this. Alongside the more public struggles that led up to Romero’s taking the Gospel stance which culminated in martyrdom, the reader learns of the more private struggles of an obsessive-compulsive man set free by grace.   This is not a light read: the academic origins of this detailed study are clear. This is a book for those who want to get a deeper sense of the ways in which God’s love in action transformed a rule-bound cleric into the beloved “Monseñor”, and of how Romero’s fidelity to God – his inability to say “no” to God – made him open to this transformation.  This is a book about Romero – but it is also a book about how God can work with each of us in our real limitations, and draw us towards being “fully alive.” Published in 2010 by University of Scranton Press in the US. It is sometimes available on Amazon.