A service in Goodson Chapel was held at the culmination of the International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18–25) to dedicate a relic of Saint Óscar Romero. Duke Divinity School welcomed the Most Reverend Luis Rafael Zarama, bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Raleigh, N.C., as the guest preacher.

On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated as he celebrated mass in El Salvador. He is now considered one of the first Latin American Church Fathers, and the Roman Catholic Church canonized him as a saint on Oct. 14, 2018. Duke Divinity Dean Edgardo Colón-Emeric has published an award-winning book about Romero, Óscar Romero’s Theological Vision: Liberation and Transfiguration of the Poor (University of Notre Dame Press). On a visit to San Salvador in March 2020, Colón-Emeric was presented with two first-order relics of Romero by the archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas.

“Today, in the reception of this relic, we celebrate the witness of Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador—his life, his testimony, and his devotion to Jesus Christ, Son of God, friend of the poor and oppressed,” said the Very Reverend Timothy Kimbrough, the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies, who participated in the dedication service. 

“A blood-splattered piece of cloth, cut from the altar covering in use at the mass being said by the Archbishop on the day of his assassination (March 24, 1980), is being given to the Duke Divinity School, bringing this witness and devotion into the midst of the student body, staff, and faculty; indeed into the orbit of the university campus.”

In his remarks during the service, Dean Colón-Emeric noted that the report of the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Roman Catholic Church, “The Call to Holiness” (2016), emphasizes that relics of the saints are not to distract from the worship of God. “Relics can be for us signs of belief in the resurrection and tangible tokens of the communion of saints above and below as one.” He described Romero as “a pilgrim for social justice and church unity, a Pentecost prophet calling us to the trio of knowledge, piety, and mercy.”

Bishop Zarama made his first visit to the pulpit of Goodson Chapel and encouraged a renewed focus on the message of Jesus to love both God and neighbor. “Our challenge, when we are looking for unity, and we see examples of someone giving their lives for the service of Jesus, is to listen to what Jesus says to us: Love God, and love your neighbor. What is the measure of love? We speak about love, but we don’t understand how deep is the challenge the Lord gives to us. The measure is Jesus himself—‘as I am loving you.’”

It is that love of Jesus “that gives us freedom to give our lives as Óscar Romero did,” Zarama said. “When we, in that freedom, open ourselves to be loved by Jesus, not with my own agenda, we can work for the unity we are dreaming of.”

The Rite of Dedication was jointly performed by Bishop Zarama, Dean Colón-Emeric, the Very Rev. Kimbrough, and the Rev. Meghan Benson (Duke Divinity chaplain). The relic will be kept just underneath the table surface of the Goodson Chapel altar, a traditional placement for relics informed the scriptural text:

“I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9). At the direction of the dean and chaplain, the relic may used in recognition of ministries and prayers associated with the gospel work of reconciliation, advocacy for the oppressed, and the reform of unjust societal structures.