Vigil this Friday to honor Monseñor Romero

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The Salvadoran community will gather this Friday afternoon for a special vigil at the plaza in honor of Monseñor Oscar Romero in MacArthur Park to remember the Catholic archbishop beatified as saint in 2015.

The ceremony—scheduled from 1-2 p.m—will feature an opening prayer, a musical reflection, candle lighting and remarks on the legacy of the man who came to symbolize the savagery of the Salvadoran civil war when an assassin’s bullet killed him as he officiated mass at a hospital chapel on March 24, 1980.

The event is organized by Clinica Romero, which bears the name of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee and opened its doors in Los Angeles in 1983 to continue Monseñor Romero’s mission of advocacy, compassion, and service.

Altars have also been set up in all six clinic locations for staff and visitors to render tribute to the man who was a fierce critic of the violent activities during El Salvador’s bloody civil war, always advocating for human rights and the poor.

PLAZA ROMERO

The event will take place at Monseñor Romero Plaza, located at 7th Street and Alvarado in the Westlake neighborhood that has for years been a magnet for Central American refugees.

The plaza opened in 2013 and features a six-and-a-half feet tall bronze statue of the Saint with liturgical clothes and his hands together as if giving a blessing.

The monument by Salvadoran artist Joaquin Serrano is at the center of a semicircular area that includes an iron tree symbolizing peace and hope and four concrete benches with quotes from the archbishop’s speeches and writings in English and Spanish, such as: “As a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.”