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JUBILEE YEAR for the CENTENNIAL of BLESSED
ROMERO, 2016 — 2017
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[Developing story: Pope Francis has summoned the Cardinals to Rome for an ordinary consistory to fix the dates and places for various canonizations, including this one, on May 19, 2018.] Now that Pope
Francis has authorized the miracle that allows Blessed Oscar A. Romero to be
declared a saint, the date and place of his canonization remain to be determined. Three
options have been put forth—Rome in October of the current year;
El
Salvador in January 2019; or Panama that same month—but the Vatican will have the last word. Surveys by Super Martyrio, neither scientific nor
(much less) binding, show results like the ones seen in the graphic (from
Twitter: El Salvador-63%, Rome-31% and Panama-6%). But, seriously, here is a rundown
of the options, one by one, and finally a few brief observations.
ROME
In general,
canonizations take place in Rome for two related reasons. First, it is the exclusive
province of the Roman Pontiff to recognize new saints, and the canon (the
official list) is kept in Rome. In second place, a saint is a model for the
universal Church, and therefore his or her inclusion in the martyrology is declared
from the head of the Church so that all the other sees (dioceses) accept it.
Some followers of Romero think that to settle for another option would be to
accept a lesser alternative.
In the case of
Archbishop Romero, there are three additional aspects that favor Rome as the canonization
venue. First, in Rome in October, Archbishop
Romero would be canonized alongside Pope Paul VI, and given the closeness
between the two, it lends a dramatic value to this option. In addition,
linking Paul VI with Romero would raise Romero's renown, since he would be
compared to a pope. Second, related
to this, the canonizations in October will take place during a synod of bishops,
a prestigious occasion, with the presence of a significant number of Church
hierarchs from all over the world (and possibly the Pope Emeritus). Finally,
the fact that Romero
lived six years in Rome and that he was ordained a priest there makes it fitting
that he be canonized there.
Notwithstanding,
the participants in our survey were not entirely convinced by this option, voting
it second. Obviously, Romero's Latin American followers would like him to be
canonized on his native continent.
SAN SALVADOR
The episcopal
conference of El Salvador sent a letter to Pope Francis, imploring him to
travel to El Salvador to canonize Romero in his own country. The letter was personally delivered to the pontiff by the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Leon Kalenga
on February 2 of the current year. According to Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio
Rosa Chávez, “we have not received a
response yet, so there exists a possibility.”
Update: In a subsequent interview, Cardinal Rosa Chávez clarified that the Salvadoran bishops’ proposal was twofold: (1) canonize Romero in El Salvador or, if not, (2) make a stop in El Salvador to visit Romero’s grave on the way to Panama.
According to
the current Archbishop of San Salvador Jose Luis Escobar Alas, the Salvadoran
prelates argued that, because Archbishop Romero is “the bishop of the poor,” he
should be canonized among the poor of his land. The Salvadoran Church also wishes
for the Pope to venerate at Romero’s Tomb, and to visit other sites associated
with the first Salvadoran saint. Finally, it is no secret that the bishops
would like to have a papal visit as consolation for a population beleaguered by
violence and social conflict.
However, Vatican
analyst Luis Badilla points out that these are “more or less the
same arguments as the Indian bishops when they requested that Mother Teresa be
canonized in India,” which did not convince the authorities in that case.
For the analyst, these are “serious
arguments, heartfelt and relevant from a national and regional point of view,
but not from a global perspective.” Moreover, the Roman procedure takes
local interest into account when it allows for beatifications to be held at the local level. In this sense, the
Romero beatification was larger than many canonizations, with something between
250,000 and 500,000 faithful in attendance, including a hundred bishops.
Finally, nothing would prevent Francis from visiting El Salvador at a later
date.
Perhaps the
fatal argument for El Salvador is that if the pope travels to El Salvador, he
could steal attendees from World Youth Day in Panama. The trip to Panama has
been planned for a couple of years as a privileged event and regional
agreements have been established to favor it. All of this could be upset with
this modification.
PANAMA
In our survey,
the Panamanian option has the least support. Indeed, it is not clear if it is a
real option or if journalists misunderstood the Salvadoran bishops asking that
it be in El Salvador as an extension of the trip to Panama (but not necessarily
in Panama). It is not clear who is really asking for this option.
Panama
certainly has its logic. First, Romero is one of the patron saints of the World
Youth Day that will be celebrated in January 2019, which is why the pope will
be in the country on that date. With the Pope already there, the canonization
can be held in Central American lands without having to do almost anything else
to make it possible.
But is it true
that there would be no alteration? The gathering is supposed to be for young
people, not a general gathering of the faithful, and adding a canonization runs
the risk of distorting the character of the entire event. The Panamanian option
does not seem to "add" anything, since Panama would have the presence
of the pope without the canonization, and will also have Romero as patron
saint. In addition, the poor from El Salvador would have difficulty traveling
to Panama as they would to Rome. Worse yet, Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa, a Romero
devotee, dismisses the possibility that Romero should be canonized during WYD.
FINAL OBSERVATIONS
All speculation
and assertion of facts on this subject—including everything preceding in this blogpost—must
be taken with a grain of salt. In the end, this is basically a state decision
that rests with the highest Vatican authorities. One must differentiate and
discard what is conjecture or lobbying by interested figures. Apart from an
information leak by someone who has access to the highest levels (the Pope's
trusted aides, the Vatican Secretariat of State), the information will only be
made official when there is a consistory of cardinals convened by the pope in
the next few weeks, and which is expected to be held in April or May. The
announcement of its convening will be made known in advance, and that will
probably be the next fact we will know—the date of the meeting at which the
date will be made known.
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