Who is Oscar Romero, assassinated in 1980 while saying mass, beatified by Pope Francis in 2015, a man Latin Americans already claim as Saint Romero of America? This biography, a Romero primer, sets out to answer this question for the general public ages fifteen up--readers who may know little about El Salvador, Romero's homeland, or the Roman Catholic Church. Based on interviews with some of Romero's seminary mates and siblings, this title reveals not-yet-published information to fill gaps in Romero's first twenty-five years of life. One chapter explores the archbishop's surprising relationship with "misguided" young adults. The author takes painstaking effort to convey the context in which this old-school cleric emerged as an audacious voice of the voiceless. That he did so is remarkable; Vatican officials named him archbishop confident he would remain silent, rein in activism, and ruffle no status-quo feathers. How and why Romero defied expectations ranks among the most compelling faith stories of the late twentieth century. Jose Inocencio Alas honors this work with a foreword. A former priest and colleague of Romero who narrowly survived abduction and torture by El Salvador's notorious National Guard, Alas has exclaimed, "I hope just about everyone in the world reads this book."

This richly illustrated biography, revised and updated in light of his beatification, tells Oscar Romero's courageous story, beginning with his humble origins and his early life as a relatively conservative priest and bishop, to the astonishing transformation that occurred in the last three years of his life.

More than ten years after an assassin's bullet found its mark, Archbishop Romero's message of concern for the poor continues to reberate throughout the world and throughout the Church. This translation brings to the English-speaking world the authentic voice of the man "already acclaimed by many as St. Romero of the Americas."

People of God is a brand new series of inspiring biographies for the general reader. Each volume offers a compelling and honest narrative of the life of an important twentieth or twenty-first century Catholic. Some living and some now deceased, each of these women and men have known challenges and weaknesses familiar to most of us, but responded to them in ways that call us to our own forms of heroism. Each of them offers a credible and concrete witness of faith, hope, and love to people of our own day. With the cause for his beatification reportedly moving along rapidly now at the Vatican, this biography of a people’s saint traces the events leading up to the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero at a chapel altar in San Salvador and the reverberations of that day in El Salvador and beyond. This in-depth look at Archbishop Romero, the pastor-defender of the poor and great witness of the faith, offers a prism through which to view a Catholic understanding of liberation and how to be a church of the poor, for the poor, as Pope Francis calls us to be.

The vivid and moving story of an archbishop whose courage cost him his life, told through the words of those who worked with him, lived with him, and prayed with him. Oscar Romero was considered a safe choice as leader of the Church in war-torn El Salvador, but he astonished supporters and opponents of the military regime alike by his uncompromising message of justice and reconciliation. Since his murder in March 1980, Romero has become a symbol of the Church's commitment to the rights of the poor.

Originally published on the twentieth anniversary of his death, this volume celebrates the life, spirit and legacy of Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.