Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Witness History
Episode: Death of a priest
Description: The 1977 murder of Father Rutilio Grande sent shockwaves through El Salvador. The 48-year-old Jesuit priest was an outspoken champion of the poor in the deeply divided central American nation. In the immediate aftermath of his murder, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, took the unprecedented step of holding just one single mass, ordering all other churches in his archdiocese to cancel theirs. Romero also refused to attend any government functions. Father Grande was one of the first priests to be killed by security forces in the years leading up to the bloody Salvadoran civil...