Oscar Romera El Salvador hosting beatification of slain Archbishop Romero

          Oscar Romero

    Published on 16 May 2015

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The ceremony will take place on May 23rd at the Savior of the World Plaza in San Salvador.
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Statement: Pax Christi celebrates Bishop Martyr Oscar Romero

Saturday, May 23, 2015 9:25 am.

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Pax Christi International rejoices with the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero and celebrates in solidarity with the people of El Salvador and the peoples of the world who recognize in Mgr Romero a witness of a peace which is the fruit of justice. Mgr Romero's legacy is the persistent search for truth, justice and reconciliation; his journey was marked by a unique coherence between his values and faith and his practice. While Mgr Romero was leading the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the political repression of the popular demands for justice and human rights reached brutal levels of violence. In facing that reality, he became a true prophet. His word and his pastoral practice - based in the Gospel - denounced the structural injustice at the roots of the repression and proclaimed the centrality of justice and the unconditional respect for human rights as the only way to leave behind the spiral of violence in which El Salvador was immersed. He tirelessly defended those whose rights were persistently violated and built bridges among those who looked for a just transformation of the conflict. But his voice was not heard by those who clung to their own power and interests, and they ordered his assassination while he was celebrating the Eucharist. The beginning of Pax Christi's commitment to peace in Latin America and the Caribbean is closely linked to Mgr Romero who asked the leadership of our movement early in 1980 to show special solidarity with the people of the region. After his assassination - and especially inspired by his evangelical coherence - Pax Christi International sent a mission to four countries of Central America as a sign of its solidarity with Christian communities and with civil society organizations working for justice and human rights in those countries. The mission also made an inquiry into the human rights situation and the position of the churches in Central America. Its findings were published in 1981 and 1982 in four reports dealing with the situation in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua and with the position of the Salvadoran refugees in Honduras. Prompted by the significance of Mgr Romero's life and witness, the United Nations General Assembly in 2010 proclaimed 24 March as the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. In its decision, the Assembly honoured Mgr Romero's commitment in "denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence." Pax Christi International considers Mgr Oscar Romero a prophet of justice and peace. He is an inspiration for our peace movement and we hope that his beatification will renew the courage of peace workers and human rights defenders - especially from younger generations - who endure threats, harassment, attacks, and death for their commitment in favor of those who are oppressed and whose voices are frequently ignored. Brussels, 23 May 2015    El Salvador hosting beatification of slain Archbishop Romero   By ANY CABRERA8 hours ago . View gallery . . . . SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Huge crowds are expected at Saturday's ceremony to beatify Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was cut down by an assassin's bullet 35 years ago and declared a martyr for his faith this year by Pope Francis. It is the first step toward possible canonization, although many of the 260,000-plus faithful anticipated to fill the capital's Savior of the World Plaza already credit him with miracles and refer to him as "Saint Romero of the Americas." In life, Romero was loved by the poor whom he made it his mission to defend and loathed by conservatives who considered him too close to left-leaning movements in the tumultuous years ahead of El Salvador's 1980-92 civil war. Romero was celebrating Mass in a cancer hospital chapel on March 24, 1980, when he was shot through the heart by a sniper who apparently fired from a car outside. The day before, Romero had delivered a strongly worded admonition to the U.S.-backed military to stop repressing civilians. The trigger man has never been identified, and nobody has ever been prosecuted for the killing. Alleged paramilitary death squad leader Roberto d'Aubuisson, who was named by a U.N. truth commission after the war's end as the mastermind of the assassination, died in 1992 having maintained his innocence to the end. Romero's beatification was held up for years by church politics until Pope Benedict XVI "unblocked" the case in late 2012, after it was determined he had not been an adherent of revolutionary liberation theology as many claimed. View gallery FILE - In this March 23, 1980, file photo, a nun plants a kiss on the forehead of slain Archbishop O … Saturday's ceremony constitutes official church approval of Romero's legacy, even if some conservatives in the Vatican and Salvadoran society still view his memory with distaste. The event was scheduled to begin with a procession from the cathedral in downtown San Salvador, where Romero's remains lie in a basement crypt, to the plaza 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) to the west. Cardinal Angelo Amato, the prefect of the Vatican's saint-making office, and the current archbishop of San Salvador, Luis Escobar Alas, planned to preside over a ceremony that would include a homily and a reading of the letter designating Romero as blessed. A huge stage was erected in recent days beneath the square's 60-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) monument depicting Christ atop a white pillar and blue globe. An urn there contains the shirt that Romero was wearing when he was shot. Officials closed off about 2 square miles (5 square kilometers) of streets nearby to accommodate the expected crush of pilgrims, many of them bused in from the countryside, and the hundreds of vendors selling commemorative T-shirts, key chains, bags, bracelets and coffee cups for $2 to $5 as well as copies of documentaries and movies inspired by Romero's life. Authorities set up 27 giant screens for the benefit of those far from the stage and deployed 3,700 police and soldiers to provide security. Hotels in the capital were at capacity, and officials predicted the event would generate $31 million in economic activity. Celebrations were also planned in Los Angeles, which is home to about 360,000 people of Salvadoran origin. Many of them arrived in the 1980s fleeing the Central American nation's civil war, in which at least 75,000 people died and 12,000 more disappeared.