Romero's beatification cause was 'unblocked' by two popes

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
June 10, 2013

After Mgr. Vincenzo Paglia was received in an audience with the new Pope as President of the Pontifical Council for the Family and Postulator for the beatification cause of Oscar Romero, last 22 April, he immediately announced that the cause had been “unblocked” by Pope Francis. Francis’ move helped speed up the cause of the pastor-defender of the poor who was killed by a sniper as he celebrated mass.

The subject was brought up again by the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, Gregorio Rosa Chávez who had worked with Romero as a priest. In an interview with Portuguese magazine Fatima Missionaria, published in a blog, Mgr. Chávez said Benedict XVI had already “unblocked” the beatificaton process. “The Postulator of the Cause (Paglia, Ed.) gave us two pieces of information. The first, which had not been made public, was to do with a conversation he had had with Benedict XVI, in which Ratzinger said Romero’s beatification cause needed to be unblocked. The second piece of information was that the Postulator announced that the Pope (Francis, Ed.) had asked him to unblock the process.”

In the interview with the Portuguese magazine, Mgr. Chávez revealed one very interesting fact regarding Francis’ opinion of the bishop assassinated at a mass celebration in March 1980. “During a meeting of Latin American bishops (in Aparecida, Ed.) in 2007, one Salvadorian priest asked Bergoglio what he thought of Romero and his answer was: “To me he is a saint and a martyr; if I were Pope I would have already canonized him.”

On the flight to the Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo and Aparecida in 2007 Benedict XVI did talk about Romero in a question-and-answer session with journalists. There are two versions of Benedict XVI’s reply: the one he really gave, which is recorded on the dictaphones of the 70 reporters who were on the papal flight and an edited version of his reply which was published on the Holy See bulletin.

Benedict XVI told reporters he considered him a “great witness of the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace and against the dictatorship and was assassinated while celebrating Mass. Consequently, his death was truly "credible", a witness of faith.” He also explained that “the problem was that a political party wrongly wished to use him as their badge, as an emblematic figure.” Benedict XVI concluded by saying Romero is a figure who “merits beatification, I do not doubt.” But these words were omitted from the “official” version.

Benedict XVI had taken into account all the latest information given to him by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in reference to Romero’s cause and the former pope was familiar with the archbishop’s background even before his election to the pontificate. After 2000 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had been given the task of looking through Archbishop Romero’s homilies, diary and published texts to see whether the content was in line with Catholic doctrine. After thorough examination of all this material, no errors were found. But one of the former Holy Office’s consultants, Alfonso López Trujillo, who was not in favour of Romero’s beatification, played an important role in slowing the cause down. So the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Ratzinger, told the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that the process should be temporarily put on hold. There were concerns regarding the use of Romero’s words for political ends. They were also seen to be linked to the ideas espoused by the liberation theology movement, a movement Wojtyla’s pontificate viewed with suspicion.

Even after Benedict XVI’s election in 2005, the “Saint factory” as the Congregation of the Causes of Saints is sometimes referred to and the former Holy Office sent no indication that they planned to try to unblock the beatification cause which they had decided to delay. Neither did the then Pope, who could have got the process going again. This is why Ratzinger’s words on the flight to Brazil in 2007 were met with so much surprise; particularly the comment about Romero deserving beatification. A comment which disappeared immediately from the official texts published by the Vatican media.

Only last year the beatification cause seemed a lost cause. 2012 marked 32 years since Romero’s assassination and Benedict XVI was just about to embark on his trip to Mexico and Cuba. Now, Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez has revealed that in a recent conversation with the Postulator of the cause, Benedict XVI had given the go ahead for the process to be unblocked, even though Mgr. Paglia had not made the news public. Instead he only announced the new Pope, Francis’ decision to unblock it.