Daily Reading for March 24 • Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, and the Martyrs of El Salvador

One of the signs of the present time is the idea of participation, the right that all persons have to participate in the construction of their own common good.

For this reason, one of the most dangerous abuses of the present time is repression, the attitude that says, “Only we can govern, no one else; get rid of them.” Everyone can contribute much that is good, and in that way trust is achieved.

The common good will not be attained by excluding people. We can’t enrich the common good of our country by driving out those we don’t care for. We have to try to bring out all that is good in each person and try to develop an atmosphere of trust, not with physical force, as though dealing with irrational beings, but with a moral force that draws out the good that is in everyone, especially in concerned young people.

Thus, with all contributing their own interior life, their own responsibility, their own way of being, all can build the beautiful structure of the common good, the good that we construct together and that creates conditions of kindness, of trust, of freedom, of peace. Then we can, all of us together, build the republic—the res publica, the public concern—what belongs to all of us and what we all have the duty of building.

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, Copyright 2007 by Plough Publishing House. Used with permission. An e-book found at http://www.plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/ViolenceOfLove.pdf