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Death of Rutilio Grande
Rutilio Grande was a friend of Oscar Romero they knew each other from their preacher training. He was a Jesuit priest in El Salvador but he was assassinated in 1977.
Grande was ordained a priest in 1959, and went on to study abroad. He returned to El Salvador in 1965. Rutilio Grande was also speaking out against the government. On February 13, 1977, Grande preached a sermon that came to be called "the Apopa sermon," denouncing the government's expulsion of Father Bernal, an action that some later believed helped to provoke Grande's murder.
I am fully aware that very soon the Bible and the Gospels will not be allowed to cross the border. All that will reach us will be the covers, since all the pages are subversive—against sin, it is said. So that if Jesus crosses the border at Chalatenango, they will not allow him to enter. They would accuse him, the man-God ... of being an agitator, of being a Jewish foreigner, who confuses the people with exotic and foreign ideas, anti-democratic ideas, and i.e., against the minorities. Ideas against God, because this is a clan of Cain’s. Brothers, they would undoubtedly crucify him again. And they have said so.
On the 12th March 1977 Rutilio Grande was on his way to mass with three other priests when they were all slaughtered by machine gunfire.Oscar Romero visited the church where they were brought to and stayed and listened to some villagers and how cruel the government was to them. The main suspect to the murder was the government because Rutilio was speaking out against them.
By Sam Lynas
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