For several years, it has been the custom of Rhetoric leavers to make a gift as a lasting mark of their time at the College. Recent gifts have allowed the restoration of the Madonna of the Edelweiss in the Long Room and the commission of a new portrait of the College's founder, Fr Robert Persons to mark his 400th anniversary.

 

We hope that Rhetoric 2011 can continue this tradition. The project we propose is rather different this year - for some years the College has been involved in important conservation work in El Salvador, and Mrs Graffius was recently presented with a small and very precious piece of the alb which Archbishop Oscar Romero was wearing when he was martyred in 1980. She has commissioned a triptych, painted by the Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort, with images of the Salvadoran people and their Archbishop, with quotations from the readings and sermons of the Mass he was saying when he was murdered. The relic of the alb will be housed in a small silver reliquary and attached to this triptych, and it will be displayed in the Do Room as the focus of displays of the pupils' ongoing work supporting the Church's work for justice and peace around the world.