Romero beatification update #10

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Msgr. Ricardo Urioste, President of Romero Foundation (center) and Dr. Ramón Rivas, Secretary of Culture (right), inspect repairs to Archbishop Romero statue in San Salvador on Thursday March 19, 2015.

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Over the next week, the Catholic world will commemorate the XXXV Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Archbishop Óscar A. Romero of El Salvador.  Commemorations will start over the weekend, mounting to a crescendo on Tuesday, March 24, the actual anniversary.  Among the highlight commemorations:

• Cardinal Vincent Nichols will preside at a special commemorative mass on Saturday, March 21 in London;
• Bishop John Rawsthorne (Retired) will preside at a special commemorative mass at St Mary’s in Liverpool (“one of only two places in the world that have commemorated Romero’s assassination every year since his murder in 1980”) Sunday, March 22 at 11 AM;
• Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez will preside at a special commemorative mass on Sunday March 22 at 12:30 P.M. at his Cathedral in L.A.;
• Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto will preside at a special commemorative mass on Sunday March 22 at 1:00 P.M.;
• Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, Apostolic Nuncio to Germany will preside at a special commemorative mass at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin on Sunday March 22, at 3:00 P.M.;
• Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, Postulator of Archbishop Romero’s beatification cause, will preside at a special commemorative mass outside the Vatican on the morning of Sunday March 22, followed by a March to Pope Francis’ Angelus prayer (Will Francis acknowledge the group in his greetings?); and
• Cardinal José Luis Lacunza Maestrojuán of Panama will preside at the special commemorative mass at the San Salvador Cathedral on Tuesday March 24 at 10:00 A.M.

In El Salvador, the commemorations will include several activities at the Jesuit Central American University, site of the 1989 Jesuit Massacre, in which six Jesuit scholars/priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were killed by a rogue unit of the Salvadoran army.  The schedule of activities is indicated below.

 

There will also be commemorative activities in Ciudad Barrios, the city in rural northeastern El Salvador where Archbishop Romero was born in August 1917.  Those activities are set forth here.

 

Super Martyrio will provide a complete wrap-up next Friday and will continue to monitor developments and provide a Friday update regarding the ongoing beatification plans.  On a personal note, I will be in attendance at the L.A. Cathedral Mass this Sunday and, God willing, I will be on location, blogging the beatification from San Salvador two months from now.

Be sure to check out my post from earlier this week regarding the Beatification Formula to declare Archbishop Romero a “Blessed,” and to vote in our poll regarding the date that “Blessed Romero” will be memorialized in the Church’s calendar.  I’ll report those poll results next week.

Read last week’s update here.