JUBILEE YEAR for the CENTENNIAL of BLESSED
ROMERO, 2016 — 2017
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The Latin
American/North American Church Concerns office (LANACC) has announced the
themes for the annual “Romero
Days” conference at
Notre Dame University in Indiana, which will begin with a Mass presided by Card.
Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila, Philippines, on Friday, March
24, the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Salvadoran Archbishop. During the
annual conference being organized for the 30th year running, Fr. Robert Pelton
will present an audacious thesis: that Romero should be named a “Doctor
of the Church”.
Among the
multitudinous number of the saints recognized throughout the millennia, there
are only thirty-six who have been distinguished with the high honorific “Doctor
of the Church,” which is usually reserved for the most eminent of the saints.
There are three formal requirements. First, eminens
doctrina (eminent learning). The candidate must demonstrate a depth of
doctrinal insight. Normally, this is expressed by an extensive body of writings
that reflect the authentic and vivifying Catholic Tradition. Second, insignis vitae sanctitas (a high degree
of holiness). This implies a truly outstanding holiness, even among the saints.
Third, Ecclesiae declaratio (the
proclamation of the Church). The declaration would be made—after rigorous study
is made on the subject—by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the same entity
that declared Romero a blessed and a martyr, and is eventually expected to
proclaim him a saint. These processes take decades to reach a doctoral proclamation,
which often comes centuries after the canonizations of the saints involved in
each process.
To understand
the requirements, it is helpful to list some of the saints who have been
recognized as doctors of the church: St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas,
considered the most famous theologians in Christianity, and several of the
so-called “Fathers of the Church”—the Saints who founded the ancient and
legendary communities in the east and the west. It is also useful to examine
the characteristics of a recently recognized “Doctor”, such as St. John of
Avila, the Spanish mystic recognized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. In the
approval of his process, it was held to be important that contemporaries,
including popes, called him “master”; that he was a theologian, an inventor and
humanist; that he authored a learned treatise; that he was a friend of several
prominent saints and played a leading role in the development of a systematic
doctrine on the priesthood.
Would the
Salvadoran martyr live up to these requirements? A “yes” answer begins to take
shape at the same University of Notre Dame, where, as we mentioned at the
beginning of this note, lectures on Romero have been presented for thirty
years. “Can you tell me anywhere else in the world where people are studying the
homilies of a bishop who’s been dead for 25 years?” asked Monsignor Ricardo Urioste at Notre Dame in 2005. Some of
the outstanding presenters at the conferences have included Cardinal Oscar Andres
Rodriguez Maradiaga, who in his 2002 address proposed Romero as “A Bishop for
the Third Millennium,” and Cardinal Peter Turkson, who in his 2011 address
correlated Romero with the parable of “Good Shepherd,” as well as numerous Romero
scholars.
These scholars
have written not only about Romero’s martyrdom, but also his thinking and
preaching: they have studied his homilies and other writings, which have been
published in multiple volumes, and have been translated into several languages.
So much so that during the Romero’s beatification, Cardinal Angelo Amato did
not hesitate to call him “a
wise bishop,” while, in a White House statement that same day, President Obama called
him “a wise pastor.” Pope Francis, in
his message for the occasion, also presented Romero
as a wise man: he acted “with knowledge
and prudence,” the Pontiff said. For Cardinal Amato, Romero was a prophet “like Abraham,” while the pope said that
Romero was “like Moses.” It should be
noted that his figure has been defended by three consecutive popes: John Paul
II, Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis, and already in life Romero had received honorary
doctorates from the universities of Georgetown and Leuven.
Despite a high
reputation as “a wise man”, there
remains one problem: that Romero was not an academic. But that did not prevent
him from having a great impact on theology, argues Professor Michael Lee, of Fordham
University, one of those scholars who has presented at “Romero Days.” In a note in the Salvadoran press, Lee explains how
Romero, despite the fact that he “did not
hold a doctorate degree, had no appointment at a university, and never
published a book or an academic article” he still “left a rich theological legacy.” According to Lee, in Romero's
case, “his preaching and ministry served,
as Martin Maier [a German Jesuit writing on Romero] has shown, as theological inspiration.”
Therefore, in
his speech in which he will propose Romero as Doctor of the Church, Fr Pelton
speaks of Romero as a “Pastoral
Doctor of the Universal Church.” St. Ambrose of Milan, who lived in the fourth
century, was the first bishop to be recognized as a pastoral doctor. In this
regard, it is interesting to note the comment of Archbishop Vicenzo Paglia,
postulator of the cause, that Romero is the “first martyr of the Second Vatican Council.” According to Paglia, “the martyrdom of Monsignor Romero is the
fulfillment of a faith lived in its fullness; a faith that emerges strongly from
the texts of the Second Vatican Council.”
For Paglia, Romero is
the first witness of a Church that commingles
with the history of a people with whom he lives the hope of the Kingdom ...
among the first in the world who tried to translate the Council’s teachings to
the concrete history of the continent, having the courage to make a preferential
option for the poor, and to give witness, in a reality marked by deep
inequalities, to the path of dialogue and peace.
The idea of a
“pastoral doctor” takes on a larger importance after the pontificate of Pope
Francis, who makes the idea of a pastoral church the quintessence of the
Council. In fact, perhaps the strongest impediment facing Romero's candidacy
for doctor is of a liturgical order, relating to tradition and customs. No
martyr has ever been included in the list of doctors, because the Office (the
prayers for the liturgical feast) and the Mass are for Confessors (saints
canonized for their virtues and not for martyrdom). Therefore, Benedict XIV
(pope bet. 1740-1758), the author of a classic work on the processes of
canonization, states that St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus and St. Cyprian are not
Doctors of the Church for this reason.
If Romero were
to be recognized as a doctor of the church, it would be historic: he would
become the first Latin American doctor. In a sense, this favors him:
one can wonder, who, if not Romero,
should be the first doctor from the Americas? It brings to mind the words of
Gustavo Gutierrez, the “Father of liberation theology,” who once said that “the history of the Church in Latin America
is divided into before and after Archbishop Romero.”
Many hope
Romero will be canonized this year. Others have even greater ambitions.
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