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JUBILEE YEAR for the CENTENNIAL of BLESSED
ROMERO, 2016 — 2017
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| 206Tours.com photo. |
Exactly four
months to the canonization of Blessed Oscar A. Romero, bishop and martyr, alongside
5 other blesseds, in Rome, on October 14, 2018, this is the second of several
notes that I post about going to Rome for the canonizations—or to be part of
the event though some other type of participation.
In the first
installment, I wrote about the general possibilities for participating in
the canonization: going to Rome to witness the ceremony in person or participating
from El Salvador, for the many Salvadorans who cannot make the trip. Now I want
to touch on two aspects that were implied in the foregoing but not explicitly
addressed: (1) participation by the Salvadoran diaspora in the pilgrimage to
Rome; and (2) the possibility of making a pilgrimage to the land of the saint,
as an alternative, especially for Americans not of Salvadoran descent.
The diaspora on the pilgrim’s route
At the
beginning of this week, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of the Romero
canonization cause, recorded a video inviting Salvadorans to attend the
canonization October 14ceremony in Rome, during which Romero will become the
first Salvadoran to be raised to the altars as “Saint Romero of the World.”
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Salvadorans have no way to heed this call,
however much they would like to, for want of financial means. However, many
Salvadorans residing in the United States have sufficient income to pay for the
trip, and they should be taken into account in efforts to attract a Salvadoran
presence to the ceremony.
According to
a study on the Salvadoran diaspora, the population of migrants from El Salvador
and their families in the United States numbers 2.1 million, and its labor
force participation tops the general population (75% for Salvadorans in
the United States vs. 64% for the American general population). Doubtless, it
is a population with many challenges, including many without legal documents in
many cases, but it represents an important group to take into account the
characteristics of the white house’s occupants—in stark contrast to the brutal
characterizations by the current occupant of the White House, who would
paint them as criminals and the progenies of a “s---hole country.”
In reality, a
community that started as a band of war refugees has realized important
achievements: 14% of them have salaries that place them in the top 25% of US household
incomes (more than $90,000 per year); 4% with salaries in the top 10% (more
than $120,000). With impressive concentrations in Los Angeles, New York and
Washington, among other cities, it would be possible to conduct targeted
campaigns, to urge them to take part in the historic process and challenge
negative stereotypes regarding the people of Saint Romero.
The emphasis
could be a return to, and reassertion of, their identity, from their exodus.
A pilgrimage to the cradle of the
Saint
On another note,
we must also recognize that many Americans admire Archbishop Romero and, even though
they may want to go to the canonization, perhaps a trip to Rome is out of
reach. For them, we can propose the idea of making a pilgrimage to El
Salvador, which has been a Romero pilgrimage destination years running.
One option is
to go to El Salvador and live the canonization with the Salvadoran people. But,
the idea of witnessing the precise moment of the canonization in El Salvador may
not be very attractive, since it will be 2 am in El Salvador when it happens
and, perhaps, if we are going to watch the ceremony on a television screen (as
the Salvadorans will do in the same square where Romero was beatified), we might
prefer to do so from the comfort of our own home.
That is why
there is another alternative, which is to go in August, not for the
canonization, but for the pilgrimage to Ciudad Barrios, where
Romero was born in 1917, for the second pilgrimage walk “to the cradle
of the saint”. Scheduled for August, beginning on August 2 and ending on
August 4, this event will initiate preparatory activities for the canonization
among Salvadorans. It is already being projected as the Salvadoran version of “the Way
of Compostella” (the great pilgrimage route in Spain). Apart from seeing
the small town where Romero was born, it also offers the possibility of seeing
the east of the country, including panoramas dominated by two volcanoes (San
Vicente and San Miguel), and places associated with other Salvadoran martyrs.
The emphasis
would be to accompany the Salvadoran people, visiting the sacred sites of
Romero’s country.
Post Script
This
conversation continues! Online and on social media, let’s use the hashtags
#VamosTodos and #AllRoadsLeadToRomero
to continue talking about these topics.
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