Vatican Decides El Salvador’s Archbishop Romero Died For Jesus, Not Marx
Not The Moral Equivalent Of The Founding Fathers But No Slouch
Vatican Decides El Salvador’s Archbishop Romero Died For Jesus, Not Marx
by Doktor Zoom
Jan 09 4:41 pm 2015
Big Catholic news: Archbishop Oscar Romero just might be a saint, even if he was a liberal. A panel of theologians that considers cases for sainthood has determined that when Romero was murdered by a rightwing death squad in 1980, he was not just the victim of a political assassination, but also a martyr to the cause of Jesus and the faith. We guess the Vatican is no longer officially the same place where John Paul II warned against the threat of “liberation theology!” This bit of wrangling angels into an acceptable position on the head of a pin is a significant step toward Romero’s possible canonization as a saint, which is a seriously weird process of theological bureaucracy.
And even though Yr Wonkette doesn’t much care for Godbothering, we’re pretty excited by this news. Romero was murdered for standing up for the poor of El Salvador, and that’s martyrdom regardless of whether someone wants to attribute the miraculous cure of bunions to him 30 years later. Yr Editrix remembers that the Marxist nuns at her elementary school made sure the kids all knew who Romero was, and that kids also learned that rightwing Salvadoran Army major Roberto D’Aubisson was a murderous bastard, favorite of Ronald Reagan, and a graduate of the Pentagon’s School of the Americas, the only school whose football fight song had redacted lyrics. The 1980s were an interesting time, is what we are getting at.
Religion News has this overview:
Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, was shot dead by right-wing death squads while celebrating Mass in March 1980. His murder came a day after he delivered a homily calling for soldiers to lay down their guns and end government repression in the country’s bloody civil war.
Romero’s cause was started nearly two decades ago when St. John Paul II gave him the title of Servant of God in 1997. But his case never advanced amid lingering Vatican suspicion of Liberation Theology, an economically progressive approach to Catholicism that flourished under Romero and was suppressed by both John Paul and Benedict XVI.
More:
http://wonkette.com/571745/vatican-decides-el-salvadors-archbishop-romero-died-for-jesus-not-marx#xMKDeXiBTlpd3YLu.99
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He could have avoided his own murder simply by leaving, or by ending his constant prayer for the poor, but he chose to continue.
There are so few people with his depth of devotion, and his love for life, for human beings, for hope for a better world. He found a way to believe while surrounded by suffering, suffering himself for his own grief for those he loved.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, excerpts.
