BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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This was
originally published in FirstThings.com
on July 8, 2015.
Salvadoran
Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated by a right-wing sniper while
celebrating Mass in 1980, was raised to the altars in a magnificent
beatification ceremony in San Salvador this May. Romero’s beatification was
full of notes of reconciliation, which seemed to mark the official end of the
mourning for the Salvadoran civil war, officially unleashed by his
assassination. The words of Psalm 125, intoned by the choir, seemed to sum up
the day: “They that sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.” Half a million gathered
around a temporary altar upholstered in martyr’s red and topped in Vatican
yellow and white, on an iconic San Salvador plaza named after the World’s
Savior (“El Salvador del Mundo,” the
country’s namesake patron saint). Five Latin American presidents were in
attendance, and both the Pope and the President of the United States issued
statements for the occasion. Nearly 1,300 priests concelebrated; the opening
procession took half an hour to complete. The temporary altar was backed by an
imposing volcano, and topped by an unexpected solar halo which appeared soon
after Romero’s beatification was proclaimed.
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| The temporary altar. |
When
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and
the Vatican official in charge of the ceremony, entered the square, he was
smiling and waving, apparently partaking of the rapturous mood. The joyous tone
of the 125-piece, four-part choir was reminiscent of an American Gospel group,
and an unknowing observer could be forgiven for not realizing this was the
beatification of a man who had been killed a mere thirty-five years before
amidst widespread massacres and a fratricidal civil war. Everything about the
scene stood in stark contrast to the dread of those years. Whereas Romero had
previously been a divisive figure, he was now universally embraced. The sister
and the son of the man accused of having ordered his murder had VIP seats to
the ceremony. Where he had been rejected by his fellow Salvadoran bishops, the
approximately one hundred bishops at the beatification all wore chasubles
bearing Romero’s episcopal shield, and Cardinal Amato wore a miter emblazoned
with Romero’s episcopal motto: “Sentir
con la Iglesia” (“To Think and Feel With the Church”).
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| Street vendor watches the bishops’ procession. |
“Following the event, watching the course of
the Eucharistic celebration,” said Luis Badilla, a Rome-based
church-watcher, “I got the strong sense
that Romero would be very happy. It seemed to me to be a very meek, very humble
ceremony. It was splendid. Nothing was missing and nothing abounded. It was a
ceremony about dignity in poverty, just like Romero.” Attendance was at
least equal to, and likely exceeded, that of the beatifications of Padre Pio,
Mother Teresa and St. Josemaría Escrivá, yet everything went off without a
hitch.
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| Faithful kneel on the pavement during Communion. |
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