A friend of the Blog sent me a note asking simply, “Will 2014 be the year?” The odds that
Archbishop Óscar A. Romero of El Salvador will be beatified are greater in 2014
than they have been in nearly a decade, so if I were a betting man, I would
answer “Yes.” But, we’ve had close calls
before and it’s a complicated year in a period of shifting sands for the
Church, so let’s look at some considerations.
First
of all, from a standpoint of new saints, the entire year is
already dominated by the scheduled canonization “double header” in April, when
Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized together on Divine Mercy
Sunday—the Sunday after Easter Sunday, on April 27, in Rome. They will be among only three popes of modern
times to be canonized, and the occasion is expected to draw massive crowds to
Rome, as the ceremony will be presided over by the über-popular Pope Francis,
with an outside chance that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI may attend. The mind boggles at the enormity of that
event.
Secondly,
the man in charge of pushing Archbishop Romero’s cause, Archbishop Vincenzo
Paglia, will have a very busy year as well.
Archbishop Paglia is the president of the Pontifical Council on the
Family, a cabinet level Vatican department, to put it in civil governance
terms. In addition to the day-to-day
running of this department of the global Church, Paglia is coordinating a
Valentine’s Day audience with Pope Francis and engaged couples, designed to
highlight families and traditional marriages.
More daunting still, there will be a Synod of Bishops in Rome in
October, which will focus on the family and, as such, Paglia is expected to
have many responsibilities in relation to that conference. These could include developing its texts and
agendas, as well as trying to broker consensus for particular outcomes he and
Pope Francis may desire to come out of the Synod (including the integration of
input from a worldwide survey sent out ahead of the meeting to deal with such
issues as sacraments for the divorced).
Third,
Pope Francis himself will have a busy year.
In addition to his ongoing efforts to reform the Church and, generally, being Pope (weekly General Audiences and
Angelus recitations, daily and holiday masses, private audiences with church
and political leaders, appointing bishops, publishing encyclicals, etc.),
Francis will be creating new cardinals in February and making a trip to the
Holy Land in May.
Fourth, El
Salvador is having presidential elections this year. Given the repeated concerns about keeping
Archbishop Romero’s possible canonization from becoming entangled in political
considerations, I’d look for the Church to try to steer clear of the
election. That puts us through March 9,
when a second round or run-off election (which is expected) would be held,
which would determine the final outcome.
Fifth,
and finally, although I do not mean to project any “line in the sand,” I propose
April 20 (Easter Sunday) as a useful barometer.
That is one year since Pope Francis ordained in 2013 that the Romero
cause should be “unblocked” and one week before the big canonizations. It seems like a both fair and natural gauge
for Vatican watchers to size up progress in Archbishop Romero’s beatification.
We may get some inkling of how the foregoing factors will
shake out from a speech on Monday, January 13 by Cardinal Angelo Amato, the
Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (Update: Report). The CCS is the principal Church authority for
recognizing new saints and Card. Amato gives the opening address at an annual
CCS training seminar, during which he sometimes lays out the CCS’ priorities
and themes for the year. The speech is
not a State of the Union Address, nor does it go into detail about particular
causes. However, it can identify
concerns or issues of interest to the Church in beatifications. But based on what
we know today, I would look to March-April as the prospective target/window for
the next stage of action.
2014 could indeed be the year.Prior Year Reports:
Beatification Outlook 2013 (Spanish)
Beatification Outlook 2012 (Spanish)
Beatification Outlook 2011
Beatification Outlook 2008 (Spanish)
Beatification Outlook 2007
Beatification Outlook 2006
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