LAT: Assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Romero to Join Beatification Path

[DeepModem Mom]

Assassinated Archbishop to Join Beatification Path
The Vatican says it will open the process for Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who spoke out against the death squads in El Salvador's civil war.

By Chris Kraul and Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writers


ROME — Twenty-five years after Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was cut down by an assassin's bullet, Vatican officials plan to announce that they will open the beatification process for the prelate, a move that would put him closer to sainthood.

Church officials in Rome and El Salvador confirmed that the announcement would be made at a news conference Saturday in the San Salvador cathedral crypt containing Romero's remains. Beatification is a step before sainthood.

The announcement will come during 25th anniversary observances in El Salvador of the March 24, 1980, assassination of Romero. The 60-year-old priest was killed as he celebrated Mass in a chapel at a hospital dedicated to terminally ill cancer patients. His killer, a sniper thought to be a member of a government-sanctioned death squad, has never been brought to trial....

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The assassination came at the height of El Salvador's civil war and brought international outrage.

In his homilies, Romero had pushed for an end to killings carried out by government-sponsored death squads and for a nonviolent resolution to the war, which dragged on until 1992.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-romero30mar30,0,6351602.story?coll=la-home-world

[adwon]

1. Hmm

Wasn't Romero a proponent of liberation theology? I wouldn't think the Vatican would look to celebrate one of its best known champions.

[Bridget Burke]

3. Well, there's always a chance to learn something new.

Aren't you glad? Things would be very boring otherwise.

[wellst0nev0ter]

2. I Wonder If There Is Some Kind Of Demonization Process

for those responsible for his death, i.e. the various neocons.

[noonwitch]

4. Maybe the beatification process will expose those who are responsible

Ronald Wilson Reagan, for example, and GHW Bush.