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ROME – Pope Francis proclaimed the late Archbishop Oscar Romero holy and conferred the highest honor on Catholicism to many Latin American and progressive heroes after years of resistance from influential conservatives.
Bishop Romero "has left the security of the world, even for his own, to give his life according to the Gospel, near the poor and his people," the pope said in his homily.
Sunday's canonization embodies the agenda of the first Latin American pope, whose preaching stresses the need for social and economic justice, particularly in developing countries.
Thousands of pilgrims from El Salvador, the home of Archbishop Romero, where he has long been unofficially hailed as a saint, attended the ceremony in Vatican's St. Peter's Square. The president of the country, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, was among those present.
Archbishop Romero was killed by gunmen in 1980 while he was celebrating Mass in San Salvador at the start of a 12-year civil war that ultimately cost 75,000 lives. people. His killers have never been tried, but in 1993, a UN-sponsored truth commission declared that the murder was ordered by Roberto D'Aubuisson, former army commander and leader of the right-wing Arena party. , who died in 1992.
The archbishop, who had passionately preached against military violence, political repression and economic inequality, was immediately venerated as a martyr by the faithful of his country and abroad. But the Vatican has taken 35 years to recognize its martyrdom, ultimately declaring it "blessed" – the highest honor of the Church, with the exception of holiness – in 2015.
This delay was due in part to the uncertainty as to whether the archbishop's killers had acted as "hatred of faith", a traditional criterion of martyrdom. But the opposition of the prelates of Latin America and the Vatican who suspected Archbishop Romero of Marxist sympathies was a bigger obstacle.
According to Roberto Morozzo Della Rocca, a history professor at Roma Tre University, the biggest opponent was Colombian cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, who died in 2008.
Pope Benedict XVI finally unblocked the process of evaluating the canonization of the archbishop in 2012, the year before the resignation of the papacy, and his successor, Pope Francis, embraced the cause with enthusiasm.
Last year, Pope Francis paid tribute indirectly to the future saint by raising his friend and longtime assistant, Monsignor José Gregorio Rosa Chávez, to the College of Cardinals.
Cardinal Rosa Chávez told reporters on Thursday that Pope Francis was planning a pilgrimage to St. Oscar's grave next January, as an exit from the planned visit to Panama. The cardinal said he was expecting the pope to announce his decision at a meeting with the Salvadoran bishops Monday.
Sunday's ceremony also marked the canonization of six other saints from Italy, Germany and Mexico, whose portraits, such as that of St. Oscar, were adorned with gigantic banners hanging on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica. .
Among the other new saints, the best known is Pope Paul VI, who led much of the Second Vatican Council from 1963 to 1965, and inaugurated many changes to modernize the church, particularly in the areas of worship. and relationships with other religions.
Pope Paul's most controversial act was the publication of the 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae", which reaffirmed the Church's traditional ban on the control of artificial births.
But Pope Francis, who downplayed religious teaching about sexual and medical ethics and indicated a degree of tolerance to contraception, did not usually mention Sunday's encyclical, choosing to emphasize the role of his predecessor as an innovator and defender of the needy.
Paul VI "spent his life for the gospel of Christ, crossing new frontiers and becoming a witness to his proclamation and dialogue, a prophet of a church facing outward, looking at those who are far away and 'occupying the poor,' said the pope.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at [email protected]
