Doctor of the Crucified People

Both during his time as Archbishop of El Salvador and in the wake of his assassination, the life, deeds, and words of Oscar Romero have commanded the attention of the world. His life and death have been the subject of books, documentaries, and feature-length films. Pope Francis canonized Romero in 2018. The world has heard often of his struggle for justice on behalf of the poor and of the injustice of his state-sanctioned murder. But few understand the theological currents that kept his prophetic witness afloat.

Doctor of the Crucified People makes the case for Oscar Romero as a modern-day pastoral doctor of the church by drawing out the theological sources, contexts, and arguments that lie beneath the surface of Romero's preaching, teaching, and writing. The book situates Romero's pastoral writings and sermons in the context of the theology, Christology, and soteriology articulated by his fellow Salvadoran, Ignacio Ellacuria. Ellacuria was a Jesuit philosopher, theologian, professor, and (in 1989) fellow state-sanctioned martyr whose writings on the crucified people helped form the intellectual and theological basis of Latin American liberation theology.

By showing how liberation theology found its incarnate expression and interior completion in the kind of pastoral and prophetic life that Romero lived, Doctor of the Crucified People offers readers a glimpse of the radical collaboration possible between theologians and ministers, and the radical solidarity possible between theologians, ministers, and a suffering world. Finally, Doctor of the Crucified People invites readers to learn to listen to what the pastoral doctor can teach us about the liberation for which our own time cries out.