BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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After Pope
Francis spoke about Blessed Oscar Romero on Friday, saying that Romero’s
martyrdom continued after his death in the way “he was defamed, calumniated [and] soiled,” I was surprised by the coverage Francis’ remarks garnered. [TEXT] I was surprised that Francis’ lament that dead
people are “scourged with the hardest
stone” in the world—the tongue—led immediately to reports accusing certain dead
prelates of slander against Romero.
Accusations these dead prelates, like Romero, cannot defend against. Generally, I was surprised by how Francis’
words were uniformly interpreted—and, in my view, misinterpreted—by the press.
To dispel
misunderstanding, here are five ways Francis’ comments have been misconstrued,
and here is everything Francis said, which
exposes the errors in the way his words have been reported.
1. Rather than condemning Romero's accusers,
Francis was praising Romero.
The lens of
error most reports interpreted Francis’ comments through was the belief that
Francis was knocking someone. We see the
bias in the verbs used to describe Francis’ action: he “criticizes” Romero’s critics, “denounces”
them, “slams,” “condemns” and even “flays”
them. All of these words presuppose that
Romero’s critics are the focus of Francis’ attention. In fact, Francis is trying to get us to focus
on Romero—not his detractors:
It is nice to
see him like this: a man
who continues to be a martyr. Well now I do not think anyone dares.
However, after giving his life, he continued to give it, letting himself be
scourged by all those misunderstandings and calumnies.
Notice where
Francis is drawing our attention: to the attitude of Blessed Romero, which
Francis lauds and holds up as exemplary.
The actions of others are incidental and peripheral to this main action, which
focuses on the man, Romero. This
fundamental emphasis is universally missed in the reporting.
2. Francis' remarks were intended to soothe
Romero's followers, not to excoriate Romero's critics.
Francis’
remarks were rightly understood by his audience of over 500 Salvadorans as words of validation and acknowledgement that
for years they had endured unfair treatment in the Church. Francis introduces his
off-the-cuff remarks by stating: “I would
also like to add something that perhaps
we have neglected.” The
Salvadorans sat quietly through all of the Pope’s prepared statement, without
applauding once during the reading of the text.
But they interrupted him with applause three times during the short ad-libbed
section regarding Romero’s treatment in the church. They accepted it as something that needed to be said, a fundamental truth that needed
to be acknowledged, not as a put-down of anyone, but as redemption of the
wronged—mostly Romero, but also his devotees among the faithful.
3. Francis' remarks were not aimed at the
Salvadoran Church.
Many reports,
particularly Spanish language stories, assumed that the subtext when Francis
spoke was an accusatory exposition of the sins of the Salvadoran church, where
the bishops had been infamously divided over Romero, and some were openly
hostile to him in life. But Francis
explicitly contradicted this reading when he said:
Monsignor
Romero’s martyrdom was not precise at the moment of his death; it was a
martyrdom-testimony, of previous suffering, of previous persecution, up to his death.
But also after because, once dead – I was a young priest and I was a witness of
this – he was defamed, calumniated, soiled, that is, his martyrdom
continued even by his brothers in the priesthood and the episcopate. I am
not speaking from hearsay; I heard those things.
If Francis directly heard unfair criticisms of
Romero as a young priest, he must have heard them in Argentina, where he lived at the time. If he heard them directly, and is “not speaking from hearsay,” then he is
explicitly not referring to things the Salvadoran bishops might have said in El Salvador, which he would only have
heard about in Argentina second-hand. This is not to absolve anyone, because it is
a fact that Salvadoran bishops treated Romero poorly; however, they were not
the focus of Pope Francis’ words.
4. Francis' remarks were not aimed at
conservatives.
Some stories reported that Francis was targeting either political or clerical conservatives. That’s also not necessarily a given. Admittedly, the actual individuals who were critical of Romero tended to be political and clerical conservatives. However, nothing about their conservatism necessitated that result; Francis did not claim that it did; and he did not explicitly disparage conservatism. Indeed, conservatives who understood Romero, like San Salvador Archbishop Emeritus Fernando Saenz Lacalle or the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Gerhard Müller, have been supportive of Romero and his sainthood cause.
5. The admonition in Francis' remarks is of
universal application.
If there was a
rebuke in Francis’ words, it was a cautious and generalized warning not to
speak ill of the dead, because we could be the ones to be dead wrong about the
merits of the cases:
Only God knows
the history of persons and how many times, persons who have already given their life or
who have died, are continued to be scourged with the hardest stone that
exists in the world: the tongue.
This is the
closest Francis comes to “condemning” or “denouncing” in his remarks. But note how the words are hypothetical and
contingent. These words are broad enough
to encompass any time someone is unfairly criticized after death, including far-fetched
cases such as Venerable Pius XII and Saint Junipero Serra—whom the pope
canonized despite criticisms that he had mistreated Native Americans, to which the Pope said it
was unfair to judge people in the past under modern standards.
Perhaps this is
the best take-away from Pope Francis’ message: a new take on the old adage, De mortuis nihil nisi bonum: “Speak no
ill of the dead,” because they are not here to defend themselves or to correct
you if you gravely misconstrue the circumstances of their lives.
Published
on All Souls’ Day.
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