Blessed Romero’s Feast Day will be March 24

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Exclusive: After Archbishop Oscar Romero is beatified in San Salvador this Saturday, his liturgical feast will be March 24, the date of his 1980 assassination, sources close to the beatification have confirmed to Super Martyrio.  There was some doubt about the feasibility of maintaining the date for the celebration due to its frequent overlap with Holy Week and Easter celebrations.

Additional information about the May 23 event was disclosed at a press conference in San Salvador, in the shadows of the temporary altar, now nearly completed, where the beatification will take place.  During that press conference, organizers revealed that:

• The Church will grant a plenary indulgence for pilgrims who attend the beatification and meet the other requirements for the grace.
• Vice-Postulator Msgr. Rafael Urrutia reported that the Salvadoran Church is investigating over 500 other possible cases of martyrdom to propose for canonization, including Fr. Rutilio Grande whose cause is already underway.
• The beatification event will be nationally broadcasted across El Salvador’s television stations and would also be televised live by fourteen international broadcasters.
• The ceremony will have many poignant details.  For example, when the Eucharistic gifts are taken to the altar, the offertory will include a book containing the Salvadoran Peace Accords that ended the 1980-1992 civil war in the Central American country.
• Cardinal Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, who will lead the ceremony, has published a book “Blessed Oscar Romero,” which suggests the great import the Church accords to Romero’s beatification.




Divine Savior Square progress, before and after.

Church officials also responded to criticisms that the beatification organizing has excluded edgier activists supporters of Romero.  Msgr. Urrutia explained that they have been inclusive of those who approached the official organizers, and that the only boundaries have been imposed by the limited space and time associated with organizing the ceremony.  Church officials also addressed questions about whether the ceremony glosses over continuing impunity in the Romero case and other crimes.  Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez admitted that impunity is a stumbling block to full reconciliation, but that Romero is an impetus to justice-based peace.

Super Martyrio will live blog the beatification.