He was initially regarded as a conservative choice as archbishop; however, he became increasingly outspoken about human rights violations in El Salvador - particularly after the murder of his close friend Fr Rutilio Grande in March 1977.

During his three years as archbishop, Romero repeatedly denounced violence and spoke out on behalf of the victims of the civil war.

In times of heavy press censorship, his weekly radio broadcasts were often the only way people could find out the truth about the atrocities that were happening in their country.

He defended the right of the poor to demand political change, making him a troublesome adversary for those in Government.

He was under constant threat of death.

Still, he would not be silenced or go into hiding or exile.

He explained, "At the first sight of danger, the shepherd cannot run and leave the sheep to fend for themselves. I will stay with my people."

Sunday's Gospel (Matthew 10: 26 - 33) says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."

The man, priest, and archbishop Oscar Romero are physically dead.

Oscar Romero proclaims the Gospel message as loudly today as he did from the lectern of Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador)

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator, and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes weekly at Restawhile.nz.

Who would have predicted it?

Who would have imagined on Feb. 23, 1977, the day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador, that the highly conservative Oscar Romero - who was suspicious of the Catholic Church's involvement in political activism - would die a martyr's death for courageously defending his people against the murderous assaults of the Salvadoran government, military and right-wing death squads?

Romero's appointment was welcomed by the government, but many priests were not happy.

They suspected their new archbishop would insist they cut all ties to liberation theology's defense of the poor.

However, as Romero started getting to know the poor and how they were oppressed by the government and rich coffee plantation owners, his conscience seemed to gradually awaken.

But the most important event affecting Romero's decision to wholeheartedly stand with the poor and oppressed was the assassination of his close friend Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande; who was promoting land reform, worker unions, and organizing communities to have a greater voice regarding their own lives.

Romero, who was deeply inspired by Grande said, "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, ‘if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.' "

In a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Romero warned that continued U.S. military aid to the government of El Salvador "will surely increase injustices here and sharpen the repression." Romero asked Carter to stop all military assistance to the Salvadoran government.

Carter ignored Romero. And later, President Ronald Reagan greatly increased military aid.

During his March 23, 1980 Sunday national radio homily, Romero said, "I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army … You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters … The law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God … In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people … I beg you … I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!"

The next day while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, Saint Romero's loving heart was pierced with an assassin's bullet.

With numerous armed conflicts raging in various parts of the world, and the Vietnam War worsening, Pope Paul VI on Oct. 4, 1965 proclaimed before the U.N. General Assembly: "No more war, war never again.

It is peace, peace which must guide the destinies of peoples and of all mankind."

Unfortunately, in 1965 the world did not heed Paul VI's prophetic words. And sadly, it has not heeded them since.

Saint Paul VI in his prophetic encyclical letter Populorum Progressio ("On the Development of Peoples") wisely said, "When we fight poverty and oppose the unfair conditions of the present, we are not just promoting human well-being; we are also furthering man's spiritual and moral development, and hence we are benefiting the whole human race.

For peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day toward the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

He was shot dead on March 24th 1980 as he was saying Mass in the cancer hospital in El Salvador.

In his three years as archbishop, he had become an outspoken voice for the poorest people of his country.

They were caught up in a conflict between the military government and guerilla groups that claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives. Read more

El Salvador's Catholic Church said a preliminary investigation showed Msgr Jesus Delgado had sex with a minor aged between 9 and 17.

The female victim, who is now 42, presented the allegations to the Salvadoran government.

Msgr Delgado is suspended from all his priestly duties, including that of being vicar-general of San Salvador archdiocese.

"We will not cover up cases of abuse of minors," said Msgr Rafael Urrutia, chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Salvador.

He added that Msgr Delgado had acknowledged the abuse and was ready to ask the victim's forgiveness.

Msgr Delgado is suspended from his role in Blessed Romero's canonisation process.

Msgr Urrutia said the victim, who has not been named, had asked "only that he [Delgado] leave the priesthood and apologise".

El Salvador's attorney general has not commented on the case.

But Msgr Delgado,77, may not be pursued in the country's courts because the alleged crime happened more than 20 years ago.

Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot by a right-wing death squad while celebrating Mass in 1980.

He was a vocal critic of the human rights abuses of the repressive then-Salvadoran government, and he spoke out on behalf of the poor and the victims of the government.

No one has ever been arrested for his murder.

Pope Francis unblocked his beatification process in 2013.

Francis authorised the promulgation of a decree recognising the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero, paving the way for his beatification, which happened in May.

Msgr Delgado attended several high-level meetings with Vatican officials to request the ceremony.

In February this year, Msgr Delgado said: "Thank God a Pope has come along who knows this situation in Latin America well and who unblocked everything, opening the path to justice and truth."

Pope Francis has criticised conservative clergy and bishops who he said "defamed" Romero.

Sources

• Reuters
• Associated Press
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Remolacha

The Pope made these remarks "off-the-cuff" while speaking on Friday to a group of Salvadoran pilgrims.

Pope Francis said that Romero suffered martyrdom not just by his murder on March 24, 1980, but afterwards.

The Pope said: "I was a young priest then and I was a witness to this: he was defamed, calumnied and had dirt thrown on his name — his martyrdom continued even by his brothers in the priesthood and episcopate."

He said Blessed Romero was "stoned with the hardest stone that exists in the world: the tongue".

"After having given his life, he continues to give it by allowing himself to be assailed by all this misunderstanding and slander," the Pope said, adding that "this gives me strength".

Blessed Romero had spoken out against repression by the army at the beginning of El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war.

He was murdered by right-wing death squads as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel in San Salvador.

Romero's sainthood case was held up by the Vatican, apparently due to opposition from some Latin American churchmen who feared his association with liberation theology would embolden the movement.

After a 35-year delay, Blessed Romero was beatified in May this year.

Pope Francis, speaking to the pilgrims, said he hoped God would continue what Blessed Romero had hoped would come to El Salvador: "the happy moment when El Salvador's terrible tragedy of suffering of so many of our brothers thanks to hatred, violence and injustice, disappears".

In a message sent for the beatification, Pope Francis said Archbishop Romero "built the peace with the power of love, [and] gave testimony of the faith with his life".

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: OP.org

Who would have imagined on Feb. 23, 1977, the day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador, that the highly conservative Oscar Romero - who was suspicious of the Catholic Church's involvement in political activism - would die a martyr's death for courageously defending his people against the murderous assaults of the Salvadoran government, military and right-wing death squads?

Romero's appointment was welcomed by the government, but many priests were not happy. They suspected their new archbishop would insist they cut all ties to liberation theology's defence of the poor.

One of the priests who worked with Romero, Father Inocencio Alas, recalled key moments leading to the archbishop's dramatic conversion.

According to Alas, the archbishop began realizing that the poor laborers waiting for work at the coffee plantations were sleeping on the sidewalks.

"What can be done"? Romero asked. Alas replied, "Look at that big house where the school used to be. Open it up!" And Romero did.

Next, he started talking with those poor workers, and began to understand their problems.

But Romero had difficulty believing Alas' claim that plantation owners treated workers unjustly. Alas said, "Why don't you go to the plantation of this friend of yours … Go find out for yourself."

After visiting the plantation, Romero said to Alas, "You were right Father, but how is so much injustice possible"? Alas replied, "This world so full of injustices is exactly what they [the Latin American bishops at their famous meeting in Medellin Columbia] were talking about in Medellin."

But the most important event affecting Romero's decision to wholeheartedly stand with the poor and oppressed was the assassination of his close friend Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande; who was promoting land reform, worker unions, and organising communities to have a greater voice regarding their own lives.

Romero, who was deeply inspired by Grande said, "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, ‘if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.' "

A shameful chapter in American history reveals the U.S. government supplied the brutal Salvadoran military with millions, and later, billions of dollars in weapons and training.

In a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Romero warned continued U.S. aid to the government of El Salvador "will surely increase injustices here and sharpen the repression." Romero asked Carter to stop all military assistance to the Salvadoran government.

Carter ignored Romero. And later, President Ronald Reagan greatly increased military aid.

During his March 23, 1980 Sunday national radio homily, Romero said, "I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army … You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters … The law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God … In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people … I beg you … I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!"

The next day while presiding at Mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, Romero's loving heart was pierced with an assassin's bullet.

On May 23, the holy archbishop of San Salvador will henceforth be known as Blessed Oscar Romero. But for the people of Central America, especially the poor and oppressed, he is already known as Saint Oscar Romero.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated columnist from the U.S. who covers a wide range of social justice and peace issues. This article is his first contribution to CathNews NZ Pacific.

"Romero, friend, the people are with you," the congregation chanted at a square in San Salvador.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the beatification Mass.

In his homily the cardinal said that "the figure of Romero is still alive and giving comfort to the marginalised of the earth."

"His option for the poor was not ideological, but evangelical. His charity extended to the persecutors."

Blessed Romero was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass a day after ordering soldiers and police to stop killing innocent civilians.

While his killers were never found, many blame the assassination on right-wing death squads.

The archbishop had been a fierce critic of the US-backed military regime that seized power in 1979.

The blood-stained short he wore when he was killed is now a relic and it was given some prominence at the beatification Mass.

Eight deacons carried the shirt, displayed in a glass case, to the altar.

One of the offertory gifts at the beatification Mass was a book "From Madness to Hope" that detailed some of the human rights atrocities committed in El Salvador during the conflict from 1979 to 1992 between leftist guerrillas and a right-wing dictatorship.

In a message, Pope Francis stated that, in a time of difficulty in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero knew "how to guide, defend and protect his flock, remaining faithful to the Gospel and in communion with the whole Church".

"His ministry was distinguished by a particular attention to the poor and marginalised," the Pope noted.

Archbishop Romero's feast day will be March 24, the "day he was born into heaven", the Pontiff wrote.

In February, Francis signed the decree recognising Archbishop Romero as a martyr, a person killed "in hatred of the faith".

A hero to the liberation theology movement, Blessed Romero's beatification was delayed for decades over political concerns.

But the way forward for his cause was unblocked by Pope Benedict XVI.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Catholic News Agency
• CNN
• Image: Business Insider

Romero gave his life as a good shepherd for his flock in a time of persecution. He modeled what a bishop looks like in a church committed to justice for the poor.

Romero's death and the baptism of blood endured by the people of El Salvador during its 12-year civil war (1980-92) inevitably have larger implications for the universal church, and for us in North America.

Pope Francis' determination to advance Romero's cause for sainthood recognizes this witness.

It also reveals the influence Romero is having on Francis' own goal as pope — to move the global church closer to the kind of church that emerged in El Salvador under Romero, whose story is a road map to such a church.

This article explores some of its characteristics: a church faithful to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, fully engaged in the modern world and its economic and social struggles; a pastoral church reaching out to the suffering and neglected people at the margins of society; a more vocal and prophetic church challenging global systems that oppress and exploit the poor; and an evangelizing church that practices what it preaches and lives what it prays.

A Vatican II church

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, chief advocate for Romero's cause, called him "a martyr of the church of the Second Vatican Council."

Romero's choice to "live with the poor and defend them from oppression" flowed from the documents of Vatican II and of the 1968 meeting of Latin American bishops at Medellin, Colombia.

It was at Medellin that the phrase "God's option for the poor" first entered official church language, a major shift at a time when the Catholic hierarchy in Latin America was seen by many as aligned with the rich and powerful. Continue reading

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Opus Dei

It's an event 35 years in the making, and it's hard to imagine anyone with a more remarkable tale to tell.

At the outset of a bloody civil war in El Salvador in the late 1970s, Romero was the country's most important voice for the poor and victims of human rights abuses.

His stance obviously threatened the power structure, because in a scene straight out of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral," Romero was shot to death while saying Mass on March 24, 1980.

No one has ever been prosecuted for the assassination, though it's widely believed the killers were linked to a right-wing death squad. Gunmen also attacked a massive crowd at Romero's funeral six days later, leaving dozens dead.

Following a US-backed coup in October 1979, a military regime took power, and Romero emerged as its nemesis.

A month before his death, he wrote US President Jimmy Carter to ask him to suspend military and economic aid to the government, insisting the new rulers "know only how to repress the people and defend the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy."

Just a day before he was shot, Romero begged, even ordered, soldiers and members of security forces not to fire on citizens.

From the moment he died, Romero has been popularly revered as a martyr and saint. The formal pursuit of canonization, however, was held up for decades.

In part, the block was due to conservative Latin American prelates who felt that awarding a halo to Romero would be seen as an endorsement of left-wing Marxist politics.

Pope Benedict XVI reopened Romero's case, and Pope Francis seems determined to finish it.

Back in 2007, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina reportedly told a Salvadoran priest that "to me [Romero] is a saint and a martyr … If I were pope, I would have already canonized him." Continue reading

• John L. Allen Jr in Crux

John L. Allen Jr., associate editor of Crux, specializes in coverage of the Vatican.

The ceremony will be in Plaza Divino Salvador del Mundo, said Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the chief promoter of the archbishop's sainthood cause.

Archbishop Paglia called the beatification a gift for the world, but particularly for the people of El Salvador.​

In February, Pope Francis paved the way for Archbishop Romero's beatification when he formally decreed that the prelate was assassinated as a martyr for the Catholic faith.

Shot dead while celebrating Mass in 1980, the archbishop has long been considered a saint by many in Latin America, but the official Vatican process had lingered for years.

Continue reading

But much less attention was given to another of the pope's actions, one that underscores a significant shift inside the Vatican under the first Latin American pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Archbishop Romero was assassinated after speaking out in favor of the poor during an era when right-wing death squads stalked El Salvador under an American-backed, military-led government in the 1970s and '80s.

For three decades Rome blocked his path to sainthood for fear that it would give succor to the proponents of liberation theology, the revolutionary movement that insists that the Catholic Church should work to bring economic and social — as well as spiritual — liberation to the poor.

Under Pope Francis that obstacle has been removed.

The pope now says it is important that Archbishop Romero's beatification — the precursor to becoming a saint — "be done quickly."

Conservative Catholics have tried to minimize the political significance of the pope's stance by asserting that the archbishop, though a champion of the poor, never fully embraced liberation theology.

But another move by Pope Francis undermines such revisionism.

This month he also lifted a ban from saying Mass imposed nearly 30 years ago upon Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, who had been suspended as a priest for serving as foreign minister in Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government in the same era.

There is no ambiguity about the position on liberation theology of Father d'Escoto, who once called President Ronald Reagan a "butcher" and an "international outlaw."

Later, as president of the United Nations General Assembly, Father d'Escoto condemned American "acts of aggression" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continue reading

Source

• Paul Vallely in The New York Times

Paul Vallely is a director of The Tablet and the author of "Pope Francis: Untying the Knots."

Speaking with reporters on his plane flight back from Korea, Pope Francis was asked by a German journalist about the upcoming encyclical.

The Pope replied that he had spoken a lot with Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and others on the topic.

"I have asked Cardinal Turkson to bring together all the contributions," the Pope said.

Four days before leaving for Korea, Francis received the first draft from Cardinal Turkson, and it was one third larger than Evangelii Gaudium, the apostolic exhortation given last year.

"Now, it's not an easy issue because on the protection of creation and the study of human ecology, you can speak with sure certainty up to a certain point then come the scientific hypotheses some of which are rather sure, others aren't," Pope Francis said.

"In an encyclical like this that must be magisterial, it must only go forward on certainties, things that are sure.

"If the Pope says that the centre of the universe is the earth and not the sun, he errs because he says something scientific that isn't right. That's also true here," he said.

Pope Francis said more study and calculation is needed, and he forecast that the final encyclical would be somewhat smaller than the first draft.

"But going to the essence is what we can affirm with certainty," the Pope said.

"But, you could say in the notes, in the footnotes, that this is a hypotheses and this and this.

"To say it as an information, but not in the body of the encyclical, which is doctrinal and needs to be certain."

Earlier this year, Franciscan superiors reported Vatican sources saying the encyclical would probably come early in 2015.

Also on the plane, Pope Francis told reporters that murdered Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero may be beatified as a martyr if theologians agree.

Sources

• Patheos
• Rome Reports
• Scottish Catholic Observer
• Image: Irish Times

A lone gunman stepped out, unhurried.

Resting his rifle on the car door, he aimed carefully down the long aisle to where El Salvador's archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was saying mass.

A single shot rang out.

Romero staggered and fell. The blood pumped from his heart, soaking the little white disks of scattered host.

Romero's murder was to become one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the cold war.

The motive was clear. He was the most outspoken voice against the death squad slaughter gathering steam in the US backyard.

The ranks of El Salvador's leftwing rebels were being swelled by priests who preached that the poor should seek justice in this world, not wait for the next.

Romero was the "voice of those without voice", telling soldiers not to kill.

The US vowed to make punishment of the archbishop's killers a priority. It could hardly do otherwise as President Reagan launched the largest US war effort since Vietnam to defeat the rebels. He needed support in Washington, which meant showing that crimes like shooting archbishops and nuns would not be tolerated.

The ordering of the murder was blamed on the bogeyman of the story, a military intelligence officer called Major Roberto D'Aubuisson who had, conveniently for Washington, recently left the army.

In the weeks before the murder, he was repeatedly on television using military intelligence files to denounce "guerrillas". Those he accused were often murdered. Romero was near the top of the list.

But US promises to bring justice came to nothing.

With no trigger-man, gun or witnesses, officials claimed lack of evidence.

D'Aubuisson went on to become one of El Salvador's most successful politicians before throat cancer killed him at the end of the civil war 12 years later - the revenge of God, many concluded.

However, new evidence suggests that Washington not only knew far more about the killing than it admitted - but also did nothing to investigate for fear of jeopardising its war effort.

Vital evidence was ignored.

Key witnesses, including the most likely gunman, were killed by those supposed to be investigating.

Seven years and 50,000 deaths after Romero's murder, I was feeling out of my depth as a novice reporter sitting on a park bench talking to a young deserter from Major D'Aubuisson's death squads who called himself Jorge. Continue reading

Image: Salt and Light TV

Among the welcome news coming on the heels of Pope Francis' election was an April announcement that the canonization cause of Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador has been, in the words of Italian Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, who leads the effort, "unblocked." Romero's path to official recognition as a martyr—he has long been a "popular" saint among many Catholics—officially commenced way back in 1997, 17 years after his murder by Salvadoran government agents as he led the Eucharist. His association with liberation theology has unfortunately complicated his cause, as both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI looked unfavorably on that movement's connection to Marxism.

Romero's rehabilitation is no doubt a signal of a change in politics at the Vatican. We might also hope it calls to mind not only Romero's death but all those lost in El Salvador's civil war of the 1980s, of which Romero was only one victim. Less than a year after his March 1980 death, three religious sisters—Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel—along with laywoman and missionary Jean Donovan were raped and murdered in December, suffering the victimization shared by so many women in times of war.

At the end of the decade in 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter suffered a similar fate on the San Salvador campus of the University of Central America. The priests were killed for their activism in service of the country's poor; mother and daughter Elba Ramos and Celia Marisela Ramos were, like so many poor working people, caught in the crossfire. By the war's end in 1992, some 75,000 Salvadorans shared their fate. Continue reading

Sources

• Bryan Cones in U.S. Catholic
• Image: Maurice Broaddus

Bryan Cones is a writer living in Boston.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia gave no further details of why the cause had been blocked in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Archbishop Romero was shot in 1980 as he celebrated Mass. If he is judged a martyr, he could be beatified without having a miracle attributed to his intercession.

Continue reading

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has been examining Romero's cause since 1996.

Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador, has said he knows Pope Francis personally "and I know he is absolutely convinced that Romero is a saint and a martyr. Everything points to his beatification being on the cards, although we follow God's time frame which is not the same as ours."

Continue reading