Óscar Romero was an Archbishop of San Salvador and social activist who was assassinated on this day in 1980 after giving a sermon where he urged government soldiers to desert their ranks and stop carrying out state oppression.

Romero spoke out against social injustice, assassinations, and torture happening during the Salvadoran Civil War. Although initially perceived as a conservative, Romero became an activist after the assassination of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande in 1977.

During the civil war, Romero was a prominent figure in El Salvador, giving popular radio sermons in which he reported disappearances, tortures, murders, and other repressed information each Sunday. In a media landscape that was heavily censored, Romero became an important source of news for what was going on in the country. According to listener surveys, 73% of the rural population and 47% of the urban listened regularly.

In 1980, Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence, the day after he gave a sermon urging soldiers to listen to "God's orders" and desert their ranks rather than continuing to oppress the domestic population. Romero's funeral was interrupted by smoke bombs and rifle shots from surrounding buildings that were fired into the mourning crowd, killing dozens.

In 2000, The Guardian named Oscar Perez Linares as the assassin, using declassified CIA documents as evidence. Investigations by the UN-created "Truth Commission for El Salvador" concluded that the extreme right-wing politician and death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson had given the order to kill Romero. Both died before being brought to justice for their role in Romero's murder.

"A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

Óscar Romero

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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

• 🌈 LGBTQ+ Resource Post
• 🍉 Resources for Palestine
• 🐌☕ Zapatista Coffee

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays

The first thing I see when tuning in is some choir singing the Battle Hymn of The Republic.
There is something really perverse about taking a song about freeing slaves and singing it in honor of a man who is about to unleash fascist goon squads on immigrants.

“His truth is marching on”
is it!!??

Carrie Underwood singing “America The Beautiful” all somberly after Trumps speech full of racist dog whistles and petty grievances made my eyes want to roll out the back of my skull.
And I had to turn it off when the Rabbi and Reverend and whoever else were going to start leading prayers.

It’s all just show to these people…just ritual they never bother trying to internalize.
They don’t care about God’s Grace…or His Will…or Filial Love.
It fills my heart with such deep sadness, it’s hard to describe.

This is how we Hallow His Name?
I feel such deep shame in being a Christian and an American and a human.
Every day we fail him and it’s only by his everlasting love and steadfast mercy we will be spared.

‘Behold, a virgin shall be whelping, and shall bring forth a puppy, and they shall call his name Spaniel.’

Hosanna in the highest! May all of Lemmy and all the people of the world have a blessed year.

link

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4139476

Since it's Friday, we sing the 51st psalm as part of the morning prayer of the liturgy of the hours.

How active are you in your local parish? Do you go to mass/service often? Do you regularly pray? I'm curious about Lemmy's religious habits and routines.

I just finished the kerygmatic phase and on Monday I gotta decide whether I wanna continue in the Way. Any thoughts on them?

I’m asking for a friend, I don’t know the Bible enough to have a definitive answer.

Unfortunately many Christians in other countries do not even know there are Christians in Palestine and view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, rather than the struggle over land it truly is. Yet Christians around the world owe much to these indigenous believers and their faithful stewardship of the holiest sites of Christianity.

Once a major portion of the population in this region, today Palestinian Christians make up about 2% or less of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, while they may comprise as much as 10% of the Palestinian people worldwide. The majority are members of Orthodox churches, second most are Roman Catholic, and then Anglican, Lutheran, and others denominations. They enjoy a respected place in Palestinian society, and a status in government, culture and business that belies their tiny percentage of the population.

These Christians strongly identify as Palestinians with the same culture and history as their Muslim sisters and brothers. In this land, Christians and Muslims have lived together peacefully for many generations. Today they suffer together under the brutal Israeli occupation and all that it entails: checkpoints, travel restrictions, confiscation of land, destruction of homes, abuse of children, beatings, killings, and more.

One of the most painful restrictions of the occupation are the limits on their freedom to worship. Tourists from around the world can visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, believed to be the site of Jesus’ burial tomb, yet Palestinian Christians who live only a few miles away cannot reach it without a special permit that they can rarely obtain, even during the Easter season.

For decades, they have been struggling nonviolently for their freedom. In the landmark Kairos Palestine Document – which has been signed by thousands of Palestinian Christians and endorsed by all the Heads and Patriarchs of the Jerusalem Churches – these Christians have issued a powerful call for justice that will lead to real peace.

[...]

They are keenly aware of their dwindling presence in the land where Christianity began, and are appalled by the brand of Christian theology that supports Zionist claims to their ancestral home, threatens their existence, and ignores their suffering and their rights as human beings and children of God.

“We also declare that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God. It distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an occupier just as it distorts this image in the Palestinian living under occupation. We declare that any theology, seemingly based on the Bible or on faith or on history, that legitimizes the occupation, is far from Christian teachings, because it calls for violence and holy war in the name of God Almighty, subordinating God to temporary human interests, and distorting the divine image in the human beings living under both political and theological injustice.”

interesting episode, mainly discussing this article

I think he was calling for a boycott of Latino-owned businesses, I don't know if there was any more malicious intent with what he said, because I cut him off before he could finish. I said something to the effect of "No, I disagree with everything you're saying. You can't blame all Latinos for something like that. That kind of petty revenge is un-Christian, and it won't fix anything."

This isn't the first time this guy has said some insane liberal bullshit, but it's the first time I've heard him say something actually racist. I thought I could avoid that kind of thing being at a more progressive church, but I guess there's plenty of Blue MAGA types out there.

Every time I post something in any Christian/Catholic community on any other community (specifically lemmy.world), my posts get downvoted beyond reason. Does anyone know anything about this. Is Lemmy usually anti-Christian? Or rather, anti-religion?

Hey y'all. I'm in a precarious situation right now. Yes, I am falling in love with someone and I want to approach this in a faithful way. My previous relationships included me putting the other person above everything basically, but I want to put God in the first place this time. It's probably healthier this way. Any Christian books about phenomenology of love or falling in love that you know of?

(NCB) Phm 19

I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about the fact that you owe me your very self.

Context:

Paul is telling Philemon that Paul himself will repay the debt that Philemon's slave, Onesimus, owes him. He is saying this to Philemon so he would take his slave back, after Onesimus has turned to Christ and has become Paul's pupil.

Now, my question is why does Philemon owe Paul his very self? In some other translation, the word life is used instead of self.

The whole epistle can be found here.

1 Kings 17:7-16

7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

12 “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

(image source) National Gallery of Art