Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero – an iconic figure worshipped in Latin America and beyond, but long seen with suspicion by conservatives – will be beatified this year in his home nation of El Salvador, the Vatican said Wednesday.
Pope Francis recognized Romero’s martyrdom Tuesday, clearing the way for his beatification after the process was blocked for years. People recognized as “blessed” by the Vatican are one step away from sainthood.
“Certainly, [the beatification] will be before the end of the year, not beyond that, possibly within a few months – so as soon as possible,” said Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, the cleric who led the campaign to have Romero beatified.
Romero’s cause was obstructed because of his supposed Marxist leanings and connections with liberation theology, a militant leftist Latin American movement from the 1960s and 1970s that rankled Vatican hierarchies.
“He was accused of being a Communist at a time of very strong [ideological] polarization,” Paglia said, speaking of “a facile and spurious accusation” that was “given to anybody who stood with the weakest and poorest.”
Francis – who has himself been labelled a “Marxist” after criticizing capitalist greed – said in August that Romero’s beatification had been “unblocked,” noting that it was “very important to move in haste” to honour “a man of God.”
Romero started out as a conservative priest. When appointed Archbishop of El Salvador, in 1977, he had a change of heart, partly in reaction to the assassination of a socially-committed Jesuit, Father Rutilio Grande, who was a close friend of his.
Paglia said a process to also beatify Grande got underway in El Salvador three months ago.
In the last three years of his life, Romero raised his voice against human rights violations committed by the army and leftist rebels at the start of El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war. In 1980, aged 62, he was killed by a right-wing hit man while celebrating Mass.
“We had to wait for the first Latin American pope to beatify Romero,” Paglia said, referring to the Argentine-born Francis, and bemoaning the “unjustified blockages” that held up the beatification process.
“Those who were strongly prejudiced had to be helped into understanding that they were wrong,” Paglia said, without naming anyone. However, he dismissed suggestions that Francis’s precedessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, were hostile to Romero.
The martyred bishop is popularly referred to as “Saint Romero of the Americas.” On the anniversary of his death, on March 24, the United Nations observes an International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims.
GNA
