This volume is the second in an ambitious initiative by the Romero Trust and Convivium Press to provide English translations of a series of books about the martyred Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Romero has been attracting a growing interest worldwide because of his prophetic words and his option for the poor, which he faithfully lived out until his assassination at the altar. As he came to the end of his first year as archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero had a strong presentiment of the rivers of blood that would flow in the years ahead, and he spoke out vigorously against violence in every form. He condemned the killings and kidnappings perpetrated by government troops, death squads, and guerrilla forces, but he deplored as well the "institutionalized violence" of the political and economic structures that ruthlessly oppressed the poor. With an integrity and authenticity rare in the contemporary church, Romero managed to find an extraordinary synthesis between orthodoxy and