Obama at Romero's grave: 'Missed opportunity'

Our President was not ready to be President. He has NO political capitol, no experience and from what I see so far No courage to do the right thing with integrity. He is a very good husband and father but he needed more experience and wisdom. He can not stand up to the political establishment or the military. He stands for nothing but he sure can give a great speech. Great speeches without truth in action are like the movie sets they build at Hollywood studios. Or 'houses built on sand'. Sadly, he is not alone in these traits.

The SOA is also called the "School of Assasins" and with good reason. Its graduates have been responsible for many assasinations, and even under its new name, it cannot hide from its aweful history. This school needs to be closed in order to send the message that the USA wishes to no longer be associated with foreign policies that condone and promote the overturn of legitimately elected governments in Latin America or elsewhere in the word and will no longer pursue policies that seek to silence the voices of the oppressed around the world when they stand up for their right to self-determination, even when this is directed against leaders that the US had previously supported. I'm sure that even with the school closed, training would continue elsewhere, but hopefully with a new mandate to teach law enforcement and respect for human rights rather than teaching distain for the law and abuse of human rights. S Beatrice Hernandez OSF

Oh, please!!!!!!!!!! It's time to move on! Rev. Bourgeois joins the rest of the elitists in "America" who expect this president to take some kind of responsibility for the actions of others! We "Americans" don't have a right to go on other people's lands and expect them to change their lives by changing their governments!

Rev. Bourgeois, go back to wherever your home is! You obviously did not hear the Maryknoll missionary message -- and that is, to make people's lives around the world better by being present to them, not by raising hell!

Ridiculous! Just Ridiculous!

President Obama, just by standing beside the grave of Oscar Romero, signals a repudiation of everything the people who murdered Romero stood for, and today still profess.

The horror of the School of the Americas will not be undone in a day, or with symbolic acts alone. Roy Bourgeois should understand that Barrack Obama represents the best chance we will ever have of forever closing the murderous SOA.

Good on you, Mr. President!

Suppose everyone who read this emailed the White House.
Instead of being disappointed we could register our desire.
But of course, change won't come from the top, it has to come from the margins.

Hasn't Mr. Bourgeois been suspended from his faculties for engaging in fake sacraments and mocking the Eucharist? Shouldn't this "newspaper" note that in any story that mentions the man for accuracy?

Yes, I sent an email to the Whitehouse regarding SOA/Whinsec and requested a reply. I never got one. I was not surprised. I am concerned that the military of U.S. has a great deal more power over the government than the average citizen is aware. We need to be very vocal at this time.

Sometimes I think we tend to overlook the blessings we have been given, always looking for more.

That’s how I felt when I read the NCR article regarding President Obama’s visit to Archbishop Romero’s tomb being a “missed opportunity.” The article addresses how Fr. Roy Bourgeois is disappointed that Obama didn’t use the opportunity to acknowledge the United States’ role in the civil war in El Salvador. Given Bourgeois’ passionate activism in trying to close the “School of the Americas," I can understand that he would have wished this. But I also wish my bishop (Cardinal) would write articles in the archdiocesan newsletter for once addressing the injustices of U.S. immigration policy instead the umpteenth one on the need to fight abortion. (This, in spite of his seeming support for immigration reform, but apparently unwilling to use that platform to explain his position to his unenthusiastic flock.) I also wish Obama would stop all U.S. led military violence.

I greatly admire Bourgeois for his courageous actions on behalf of all those who have been persecuted, killed and tortured by graduates of SOA/WHISC, not to mention his recent action in which he stood up against the injustice against women in the Church, which resulted in his excommunication. His actions and his life seem to be both courageous and prophetic. He is a man ahead of his time. Yet at the same time I think those of us that fight for peace and justice tend to want to see the fruit of the seeds we have planted. We tend not to be patient and realize that we will likely never see the fruits of our labor pay off. We want things in our time, not God’s.

I feel this way sometimes working in my parish with our own community organizing/ peace and justice work. I often step back and think – what am I doing? Why don’t I just relax at home on Sunday afternoons with my family instead of spinning my wheels and getting nothing but frustration in return? What am I trying to recruit others into? What are we working for? And sometimes I fail to appreciate the tiny fruits of our labor – people feeling valued, people feeling loved, a deeper sense of community, that my young son is learning to work for justice on behalf of others – something I didn’t begin learning about until at least high school. And of course, all the bickering and feeling unappreciated and like we’ve accomplished nothing is still present, because no, the world hasn’t changed as the result of our seemingly insignificant actions. But we are trying, and you never know when trying is going to lead somewhere. Certainly not-trying will lead no-where.

Which, in a way, brings me back to Obama and Romero. When did Obama first learn about Romero? Now, being well-educated and well-rounded, he may have known about him for a long time, or he may not have learned about him until he was president of the United States and some staffer suggested a visit to his tomb as part of a political agenda, but there is part of me that wonders if Obama didn’t first learn about Romero on the streets of Chicago in his community organizing days. It seems that in organizing in those churches he would have run across Romero’s story, even if he hadn’t heard it before. Someone planted a seed that is bearing at least a little fruit.

So, can’t we just appreciate the powerful gesture that it is that the President of the United States went and visited the tomb of a Catholic Archbishop that spoke out on behalf of the poor and was killed 31 years ago for it in a tiny little country that most people couldn’t even find on the map. That the president knows who Romero is, that the president bothers to make his very short visit to El Salvador include a visit there. He could easily have not gone there. That the visit to Romero’s tomb rifled some feathers on the right – those who perpetrated Romero’s murder. That – for those that think that Romero is a modern-day saint – it probably means a lot, for all those Salvadorans in the United States who had to flee their own country and now make the United States their home, an acknowledgement that their now-country knows a bit of the story of their country of birth, well I think that’s a pretty powerful statement. Those of us that know who Romero is, I think, tend to become so accustomed to his story, that we think the whole world knows it – but most of the world does not know his story. Surely, many more people will hear of it because of Obama’s visit. While I can hardly speak on behalf of the Salvadorans in the USA or El Salvador, having personally known hundreds of Salvadorans as both clients and friends, having heard their stories and having fought for their immigration status and asylum claims, being married to a Salvadoran and having a child who is by heritage a half-Salvadoran, I know it speaks volumes to me.

Do I want the SOA closed - absolutely! Do I wish that the USA was always on the side of justice - yes! And there are many other things I would like as well. I am trying to learn not to want so much that I cannot appreciate a small step in the right directions. And, while yes, sometimes words do say things that cannot be said with actions, the action can often be more powerful than the words. Plus, who knows, maybe the visit will plant yet another seed, and we do not know what the results will be, or when. Even Romero wasn’t converted to be the prophetic voice he became in a day. (And maybe that's what Bourgeois is hoping in stiring up this 'controversy')

For once,I am inclined to agree with Ray Bourgeois. It would have been great to see Obama express some explicit contrition for our past mistakes in certain countries,such El Salvador. It was one of the church's greatest moments,when John Paul II sought forgiveness for the mistakes of the past at the beginnning of the New Millenium. I would have liked Obama to have followed in this vein.

Would it be too much to ask to have Bourgeois referred to as the "excommunicated priest, Roy Bourgeois?" He finally agreed that he had been excommunicated. He disputed that for a long time because he knows that ex-Catholics don't get nearly as much media space.

"Bourgeois was excommunicated latae sententiae for his participation in a women's ordination ceremony in August 2008."

I, too, wish President Obama would close the SOA. But really, we all need to stop expecting the man to be a pacifist. He never claimed to be one during his campaign and he certainly hasn't acted like one since his election. Why do liberals consistently act surprised when he wages war?

It was nothing more than a political stunt!

One of the churchwomen killed was a good friend of mine. It is a shame that our president wouldn't acknowledge US complicity in her murder and move to close down the SOA.

What a missed opportunity indeed!

Let's cut Obama some slack. I can't imagine another president going there. A half-cake is better than none.

This article shows that Obama and Funes understand international politics, and Roy Bourgeois does not. One day the Western Hemisphere Institute will close, or morph into another institution, but not because of the minuscule efforts of SOA Watch.

Has Obama actually done anything that would lead anyone to expect him to do something about Whinsec? He's continued to prosecute two illegal wars, started a third one, kept Guantanamo bay open, continued so-called enhanced interrogation, etc. Obama, like Bush, is just a warmonging imperialist.

I very much admire what Ray Bourgeois is doing. However, I don't think that this was the time to go after the President. Would he have preferred him not to
go to Romero's tomb at all. Most of us know Fox News' stand on things.

I have the highest respect for Fr. Roy Bourgeois and have participated in the SOA Watch in Georgia in the past. While I agree in part with his critique of President Obama's seeming silence and inaction, I'm not convinced that his initial reaction is the end of the story. Here's my take and response, titled "Obama and Romero: Planting Seeds of Hope or Raising the Veil of Injustice?" http://datinggod.org/2011/03/23/obama-and-romero-planting-seeds-of-hope-...

How sad that rightist Salvadoran Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar, the one most responsible for delaying Romero's path to cannonization, was allowed to participate in the wreath ceremony. It has been said that he doesn't want Romero sainted because that would suggest that Romero's approach to pastoral style, serving the poor, was appropriate and Escobar would have to alter his rightist, high living style. How far we live from recognizing truth in public.

I certainly agree with Fr. Roy Bourgeois's view that this visit to Archbishop Romero's grave was a "missed opportunity" for President Obama.

Consider that, at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in 2009, Obama declared: “The United States will be willing to acknowledge past errors where those errors have been made.” But if he couldn't acknowledge U.S. "errors" in Chile or El Salvador -- two countries that suffered horribly due to U.S. sponsorship of oppressive regimes -- one has to wonder what Obama might consider a significant error.

As for Roy Bourgeois having been excommunicated from the patriarchal Catholic Church -- I fail to see how that has any bearing whatsoever on the cogency of his comments in this article.

And as for appeals to cut Obama slack, to give him more time to prove his mettle: well, that's easy to say in the abstract, but it's not easy for people dying in the streets and countryside (in Honduras and Colombia, for instance), or for people aware of those mounting casualties.

While I support Fr Bourgeois's right to his view I am also pleased that the President has recognized one of the 20th Centuries great and noble martyrs. The lesson here is that eventually a good and holy man is recognized even by the most powerful of the secular institutions. Also President Obama while not a Catholic is a Christian man in charge of the most powerful nation on earth. Quite a few small and large mercies there!

President Obama: Constitutional Scholar, Nobel Prize Winner

His words, 2007: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,”

The seamless garment: 5 wars, abortion, 13 trillion dollar debts.

As I read the negative comments about President Obama's visit to Archbishop Romero's grave, I was deeply saddened. It reminds me of our so called legislative branch who seems to spend most of their time carping about whatever the President does. He can do nothing right in their eyes. Everyone has an agenda.
If the commentators above were at the sermon on the mount they would be asking why Jesus didn't condemn the Roman Assassination Squads- (Roman Legion) or why didn't he call for street demonstrations to bring down that bloody tyrant, Herod. Instead he delivered a weak speech called the Beatitudes.

Can't we just give the man credit for paying homage to a man of peace and integrity. Maybe St. Romero can work some magic.

MaryAnne has written so very eloquently all that I thought as I read this article today. After I read the NCR online story, I read the NPR online coverage of the same story. As I did I was aware that President Obama,by his very presence at the tomb, had called the world's attention to the story of the martyred and beloved Oscar Romero in an unprecedented way. As someone who has participated in the yearly SOA vigils at Ft. Benning and whose visits to our Salvadoran sister parish have taken me on many occasions to the tomb of Archbishop Romero, I know the power and the pain of standing at this sacred place that by its very existence proclaims courage and faith. The story is not over and the journey to justice continues. But President Obama gave us a gift today-and for that I am grateful.

Archbishop Romero must have turned over in his grave while receiving a visit from Obama only days after he had initiated a bombing attack on Libya, and while continuting Bush's wars, Bush's concentration camps and apparently condoning the torture of Pfc. Bradley Manning who has not been convicted of any crime and whose treatment Obama, as C-in-C, could change with one phone call. Obama is beginning to look more and more like George W. Bush with a sun tan.

Why mix religion with politics. I think we better stop that and/or discuss it in this country. It makes no sense.

Congrats to Obama for doing this much. He has taken an important step. Have we forgotten how to say thank you?

I have no doubt that those who oppose the SOA think they are doing good but once again it is a case of a small element making a lot of noise about an even smaller element. Is there causality between SOA and a few of the graduates who do great evil?
Before you jump on that, recall the recent disclosure about the Professor at Northwestern University who invited a woman to totally disrobe and amuse herself with a vibrator in front of the class on sex education. Apparently, the Prof has an excellent reputation as an avant garde teacher. Would you want to close him down?

Comentario de un salvadoreño.
Disculpen que escriba en español
Gracias por todos los comentarios que exaltan la figura de Romero y ponderan la historia de El Salvador frente al mundo. Es cierto que hubiéramos deseado que el Presidente Obama hiciera algún tipo de declaración frente a la tumba pero creo, personalmente, que su presencia y su actitud demuestran lo que las palabras no podrán decir jamás, hubiera sido tan facil obviar a Romero por Libia y no fue asi. Soy un salvadoreño que de niño vivió la guerra, he vivido la rabia frente al dolor y la injusticia y ahora enfrento la responsablidad de generar cambios en mi país. Sin duda, Oscar Romero me ha inspirado a ello. Como un adulto cercano al ejemplo de Romero mi deseo es que este humilde servidor de dios, como él se decía así mismo, sea capaz de hacer refelxionar a los hombres que creen tener el poder en sus manos. Que la voz de Romero les cuestione y les conmueva sobre las acciones que emprenden y el impacto de estas en sus pueblos.
Ojalá Romero, como tantos otros hombres y mujeres del mundo, sirvan de inspiración para Estados Undios y para el mundo entero, que su voz no les deje vivir en paz mientras ellos no promuevan y consoliden la paz, y por sobre todo, para hacer desaparecer todas las estructuras que atentan contra la igualdad, la desesperanza globalizada, y la convivencia en paz de los pueblos. Esta, creo, es la esperanza que me queda al ver al presidente Obama frente a la tumba de mi pastor. Fue increible ver al Presidente Obama reindiendo respeto por un hombre que ahora se encarna en millones de personas a lo largo y ancho del mundo. Esto es lo que sentí. Dignidad a pesar del silencio y ciertamente, vi llorar a mucha gente.
Personalmente creo que el gesto del presidente Obama es valiente y valioso para el corazón de un pueblo que sana heridas pues representa la reinvindicación para el pueblo de El Salvador y su tradición y legado de mártires para el mundo, como repito, a pesar del silencio. Este reconocimiento silencioso me ha hecho perdonar y tener fe en que lo pequeño, lo imperceptible, lo insignificante, puede cambiar lo que se piensa imposible y esto es algo, que por ingenuo que pueda parecer, es lo que ha sucedido, El pastor está ya a la vista del mundo y el mundo tiene ya la posibilidad de escuchar.
Nuevamente agradecido

What is Father Bourgeois' judgment on Pope John Paul's complicity with the power elite that murdered Archbishop Romero only days after he returned from a trip to the Vatican. The Pope kept him waiting for days and criticized him for his fight against the military right-wing powers in El Salvador that were murdering and persecuting their own people.

I suppose he thinks all the evil done is done by the American military and the SOA.

It may be his life work. It may be laudable to protest the injustices perpetrated by graduates of the SOA.

However his own church gave no comfort or help to Archbishop Romero. His own Pope might have spoken up to save his life, but did not.

Archbishop Romero is my own personal candidate for sainthood. Not John Paul the Second.

President Obama may be a warmonger, but he's no Bush. That's cause he is good on the critical issue we really care about, legal abortion. War, peace, whatever. Liberals: Support Our Commander in Chief.

Wow, how the tomb sure has changed since I saw it in the early eighties, after wojtyla's quick trip there.

Our great saint Mons. Oscar Arnulfo Romero had stopped construction on the new Cathedral in order to feed the hungry poor.

Guess it got completed, and the poor go hungry.

"The 1993 U.N. Truth Commission Report on El Salvador found that the U.S.-armed and trained Salvadoran military had killed tens of thousands of civilians in a systematic attempt to eliminate its political opponents."

This is what Calderon now does in Mexico.

There is no war against the drug cartels, or between the drug cartels. Calderon is clearing out those places which did not vote for him in the last national presidential elections, whose results remain even more doubtful than Florida 2000, in order to provide his elistist, monopolist PAN party guaranteed success. Thousands meanwhile have died; many more have fled.

I am chairperson of the Irish El salvador support committee founded in 1979. We wrote to Monsenor Romero in early 1980 in solidarity especially as we all knew that his life was under threat. The then U.S. President Carter did not even acknowledge Oscar Romero's letter to him asking him to stop sending military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces as it was being used to repress his people.
Later this aid increased to 1million dollars a day -all of which was used to further repress and murder the salvadoran civilian population. If Obama had any sense of justice he should have asked for forgiveness from the salvadoran people for the grave wrongs done to the Salvadoran people in the name of so-called U. S. national security .
On this the 31st Anniversary of the assassination of Monsenor Romero let us hope the the official catholic church will also acknowledge its failure in protecting Oscar Romero and at least proclaim him a 'Saint' thus acknowledging the Latin American People's proclamation of him as 'St. Romero of the Americas.