VATICAN CITY – Last Sunday, Pope Francis praised two of the leading figures of the 20th century Catholic Church as prophets who fled wealth and turned to the poor as he canonized Pope Paul VI in the midst of modernization and Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero.

At Mass in St. Peter's Square, Francis declared the two holy men to some 70,000 faithful, a handful of presidents and 5,000 Salvadoran pilgrims to Rome. Tens of thousands more Salvadorans stayed up all night at home watching them on giant television screens in front of San Salvador Cathedral, where the remains of Romero are buried.

As a sign of Paul and Romero's strong influence on the first pope in the history of history, Francis wore the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was shot in 1980 and also used the stick, the chalice and Paul's clothing.

Paul presided over church reforms that modernized and polarized the 1960s, while Romero was assassinated by El Salvador's death squads for his fearless defense of the poor.

In his homily, Francis described Paul as "a prophet of an outward facing church" to care for the poor faraway. He added that Romero had renounced his security and his life to "be close to the poor and his people".

And he warned that those who did not follow their example to leave everything behind, including their wealth, might never really find God.

"Wealth is dangerous and, says Jesus, even makes his salvation difficult," said Francis.

"The love of money is the root of all evil," he said. "We see that where money is at the center, there is no place for God or for man."

For many in San Salvador, it was the culmination of a busy and politicized campaign for the Church to officially honor a man who publicly denounced the repression exerted by the military dictatorship of El Salvador at the start of the civil war that broke out in the country in 1980-1992.

"I am here to give glory to Monsignor Romero," said Aida Guzman, a 68-year-old Salvadoran who wore pictures of people killed during the war while she was joining thousands of people during the war. a Saturday night procession in San Salvador. "He is a light for our people, an inspiration for all."

Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was murdered while he was celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980 in a chapel of a hospital. On the eve of his assassination, he had delivered the latest in a series of sermons demanding an end to the crackdown on the army – sermons that had enraged the leaders of El Salvador.

Almost immediately after his death, Romero became an icon of the South American left and is frequently quoted with Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi as one of the most influential human rights defenders in the world. The United Nations commemorates each year the anniversary of his death.

But its popularity with the left has delayed decades in its holy cause in the Vatican, where right-wing cardinals led by Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo have warned that its rise would envelop Marxist revolutionaries on the continent.

Finally, Pope Benedict XVI unblocked the cause and Francis reached it until his conclusion on Sunday, notably by asserting that Romero was a martyr of the church – killed by hatred for the faith and for preaching the church. Gospel, even if his killers were Catholics like him. .

Romero's influence continues to be felt by the youth of El Salvador as the country undergoes brutal gang violence that has made the Central American nation one of the most violent in the world.

"He is my guide and, after what I've read about his life, I want to follow his example," said Oscar Orellana, 15, who entered the procession of San Salvador, dressed from a white tunic similar to the one used by Romero. carry.

Paul VI, for its part, is best known for presiding over the last sessions of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-1965 church meetings that opened the Catholic Church to the world. Under his auspices, the church agreed to allow the liturgy to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than in Latin and called for a strengthening of the role of the laity and the improvement of relations with the people. of other religions.

Paul is also remembered for his two most important encyclicals, or teaching materials, which had a profound effect on the church: One, "The Progress of the Peoples" denounced the growing inequality between rich and poor , and the other, "Humanae Vitae," reaffirmed the opposition of the Catholic Church to artificial contraception.

The severe ban on contraception, such as the birth control pill or condom, has strengthened conservative power, but has pushed the progressives away. Even today, studies show that most Catholics ignore this teaching and use contraception anyway.

Francis was deeply influenced by Paul, who was the pope of his formative years as a young priest in Argentina and who helped to create "the preferential option for the poor" in the Latin American Church.

Francis also embraced the ethos of "the church of the poor" embodied by Paul when Paul officially gave up wearing the papal tiara adorned with jewels.

Paul is also very important to another Pope, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whom Paul named Cardinal in 1977. There had been speculation that Benedict, 91, could attend Sunday's canonization, but officials claimed that he had recently weakened. Instead, Francis visited Benedict XVI at his home in the Vatican Gardens on the eve of Mass.

Aleman reported from San Salvador.

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