BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas did not want the beatification of Archbishop Romero to become a scene of carnage like his 1980 funeral, in which 44 worshipers were killed in disturbances and the stampede they triggered. “It is true that we organizers were very concerned about the safety of the people who would massively attend the event because unfortunately we were living a situation of great social violence,” the Archbishop of San Salvador admits to Super Martyrio. “However I must say that the whole celebration took place in the best way possible, with so much respect, in a spirit of cooperation, with great humility and, above all, with much faith.”
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| Archbishop Escobar at the beatification. |
The theater of action was vast—the spaces and streets impacted covered an area the size of
Central Park in New York City. Early Saturday morning, navigating the
surrounding areas was something like driving through the Gaza Strip—drivers had
to turn over their licenses to enter the area. The approaches to Divine Savior
Square were an organized chaos, with various lines to walk through checkpoints to
enter the area. Busloads of uniformed students, groups of nuns, Boy Scouts, and
the sound of foreign languages, joined the bustling excitement that day.
Emerson Didier Paez
Martinez spent the
night in Divine Savior Square with 90 young people and some parents from the San
Francisco Catholic Educational Complex. They had arrived at four o'clock Friday
afternoon, and endured the torrential rain, overnight frost, hunger and thirst,
so that dawn would find them in a privileged position near the enclosed temporary
altar for the beatification. They were nearly evicted from their posts in the first
row behind the special guests, to permit VIP entrances to “Ground Zero”, but an
old nun intervened on their behalf. “I
just thought Archbishop Romero had sent an angel to advocate for us, at the
start of the solemn ceremony,” Emerson muses.
When the
priests began their procession from San José de la Montaña Seminary to the temporary
altar, the world realized the magnitude of the ceremony. The clergy’s march
lasted half an hour to introduce some 1,300 priests, 100 bishops and six cardinals
to the temporary altar erected in the square. So great was the number of
con-celebrants that at some point there was a traffic jam in the procession to
the altar and the prelates, including the principal celebrant, Cardinal Amato, had
to stand in place on the ramp that led to the altar waiting for the blockage to
ease. The choir had to repeat the songs to give additional time for the
procession. [The Music.] All this did not dampen the spirits of Cardinal Amato, who smiled
and blessed, clearly buoyed by the festive ambiance (comparing his mood here to
other beatifications will dramatize his exuberance).
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| Three presidents: Juan Carlos Varela (Panama), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Juan Orlando Hernández (Honduras). |
Paulita Pike was in front of the telephone company tower. “I looked around and we were one people,” she recalls. “There seemed to be no protocol or official nametags or badges of the Church, nor finery, nor heels nor ties, nor reserved seats, nor diadems handed out.” The army, police and security professionals were unnecessary, Pike argues. “Better they had gone on vacation that day because they drew their salaries to have fun. Fear had gone elsewhere.”
Applause would
break out with every mention of Archbishop Romero, including minor ones and
unexpected ones, such as the inclusion of the new Blessed among the saints
mentioned in the Eucharistic prayer. The enthusiasm was sometimes startling; fireworks
burst during Mass, including at the reading of the gospel. Equally euphoric
were the cheers that went up during the ceremony, especially those in favor of
the pope.
The entire
liturgy—its songs, readings and orations—can be summed up in the tragico-triumphant
tone of its responsorial psalm: “Those
who sowed in tears shall reap rejoicing.” [Summary - Compendium - Trivia.]
The climax came
at 10:26 am local time, when Cardinal Amato said the name of Archbishop Romero
in Latin, “Ansgarius Arnolfus Romero
Galdamez” followed by the formula “episcopus
et martyr ... beati nomine in posterum appelletur,” from which moment on,
the son of Santos and Guadalupe, “the boy
of the flute”, became the first Salvadoran beatified.
Julian Filochowski, President of the Romero Trust,
traveled from London and was sitting with some Irish nuns behind the ranks of
the clergy. “My overall feeling was of
unbounded elation,” recalls Filochowski, who got Romero nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. “And yet, all
that was mixed with a strange sense of emptiness in the gut”—he remembers—“it was exactly the same feeling I had when
Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years of incarceration” in 1990. “Blessed Oscar Romero now truly belonged to
the whole universal Church and not simply to us, that small fellowship of true
believers, who had doggedly pursued the struggle for martyrdom recognition.”
Emerson Paez, the
coordinator of the youth group from the San Francisco parish, shed tears. “I felt it was the victory of the just, the
poor, of the humble, the marginalized, the voiceless; Archbishop Romero
represented us all and what the people had been saying, Archbishop Romero a
Saint, the church was now only confirming.”
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| The youth group from the San Francisco parish. |
Sandra Judith Zuleta Cornejo was on the other side of the
altar, following the ceremony on a giant screen. “I feel I acted like a nonbeliever, but in my mind I thought why not
give us a sign?,” recalls the teacher from the Fr. Richard Mangini Catholic
Institute, “like the apparitions in
Fatima, so that those who had the privilege of being special guests despite having
been the biggest opponents will blush with shame and recognize, just like those
Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross recognized Jesus as the son of God, that
Archbishop Romero is a saint.”
Then, the
teacher Zuleta and thousands of people looked skyward. Everyone saw and
recorded a singular phenomenon. “My
enduring memory is the rainbow, the solar halo which is the technical term,”
says Julian Filochowski. “It appeared
round the sun at the moment that the decree of beatification was read out and
lasted for about 45 minutes.”
Jorge Bustamante, director of Grupo Radio Stereo, was
near the special guest entrance. “I
remember the sea of umbrellas that then disappeared to admire the solar halo,”
Bustamante says a year later.
Archbishop Escobar
did not see the halo until after the ceremony. “I must say that we bishops who accompanied the presiding Cardinal of
the ceremony did not have the opportunity to see that sign from heaven, because
the roof of the stage hindered us completely,” recalls the Archbishop. “We have seen it later in photographs and
videos that were made,” said the prelate.
For Julian
Filochowski, although the phenomenon was not a miracle in the strict sense of
the word, it was a sign. “For me what
came to mind was the scriptural description of Jesus being baptized in the
Jordan and the voice from heaven: ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased’. It was not a miracle but it was a sign!”
The Archbishop
agrees on that point: “It is truly great
and very significant, I think that in this way God put his signature on such an
extraordinary event that brought joy to heaven and earth”, he reflects. “I had never seen a solar halo in my life, and
I understand that in this country it does not happen, but for God nothing is
impossible,” says the archbishop. “He
has wanted to make the world see that there is a shining star in heaven, which
is always enlightening the people of God with his doctrine, his spirit and his
intercession—our Archbishop Oscar Romero.”
Herberth
Huberto Hernandez Hernandez, another San Francisco student, agrees: “Romero means
a light that is still alive and increasingly grows to reach the many hearts
that need it.”
[More: A beatification at Pentecost]
[More: A beatification at Pentecost]
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