Pope Francis Declares Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero 'a martyr'

 

Big news in El Salvador is that Pope Francis has ruled that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero died as a martyr, paving the way for his beatification, the step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

A critic of the military regime at the outset of El Salvador's civil war, Archbishop Romero was shot and killed while celebrating Mass in 1980.

Rumor had it that the Catholic Church blocked the process to honor Romero because of concerns that he had Marxist ideas. The bishop was a proponent of Liberation Theology, an interpretation of Christian faith through the perspective of the poor.

Unlike other candidates for beatification in the Catholic Church, martyrs can move to the beatification stage without a miracle attributed to them. A miracle is needed for canonisation, however.

Archbishop Romero denounced the right-wing death squads that operated in El Salvador, and the oppression of the poor, calling for an end to all political violence.

KJ

Related articles

Roman Catholic Church 'opposed on principle' to IVF change

Pope Francis prays for Malawi flood survivors