IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring
By Melissa Vida and Junno Arocho Esteves
ROME (CNS) — For many pilgrims from El Salvador and for
many Catholics who focus on the tie between faith and justice, waiting for the
canonization of St. Oscar Romero was an exercise in patience.
The declaration of the sainthood of the Salvadoran
archbishop, who was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980, teaches men
and women that “holiness is first and foremost a gift” that doesn’t
come quickly, said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines.
“In Oscar Romero, we saw how he struggled, how he took
the painful path of reconciling his previous understanding of the Gospel and
the performance of the church’s mission with the openness that Vatican II
presented,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service after celebrating a
vigil Mass Oct. 13.
“In a world where everyone is in a hurry, in a rush,
and we want things perfect, well, he seems to be telling us, ‘Take it easy, be
patient!’ And if you have to suffer through your own internal revolution of
change out of love, then it’s worth going through it,” he told CNS.
The Mass preceded a conference and a concert sponsored by
Caritas Internationalis celebrating the Oct. 14 canonizations of both St. Romero and
St. Paul VI.
Cardinal Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis, presided
at the vigil Mass along with Cardinals Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa,
Honduras, and Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador.
Holding back tears, Cardinal Tagle said in his homily that true
Christians give witness not to an ethic or a law, but “a person, Jesus who
loved me, who gave his life for us and I experienced this love, this
charity!”
“And when I live by that love, my life becomes a
testimony to the gift I have received,” he added. “And death does not
become the annihilation of life, but death becomes the apex of life. When we
love, we live. But when we love, we also die. But it is in dying that we
live.”
Cardinal Rodriguez said St. Romero’s canonization
wasn’t just a reason for El Salvador to celebrate but for all Central America
and that “it also is a reason to hope.”
St. Romero “simply took up his cross,” the
cardinal said, “and it was a heavy cross because (it was) the cross of his
brothers (bishops) who didn’t support him — because there were very few who
supported him — and even in the midst of that, he knew how to go forward until
he triumphed.”
For Manuel Roberto Lopez, El Salvador’s ambassador to the
Holy See, there is only one word that comes to mind as a Salvadoran witnessing
the beloved archbishop’s canonization: a blessing.
“That’s the word that comes to mind because I feel that
it is a blessing that comes from heaven not only for Salvadorans, it’s for all
Latin America, for the whole world,” Lopez told CNS.
“I hope the Salvadoran people, especially young people,
understand this message and they can truly live out the teachings of Romero
because, if not, his blood will be shed for nothing,” he said. “St.
Romero is waiting for that fruit from us.”
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, postulator for St. Romero’s sainthood
cause, said he believed the canonization of the Salvadoran archbishop and of
St. Paul VI marks a turning point for the Catholic Church.
“For me, this is not only a beautiful celebration,”
Archbishop Paglia told CNS Oct. 13. The canonizations mark “a new step for
the church.”
“There will be three people, two who are in heaven and
one on earth: Paul VI, Romero and Pope Francis, who all admire each
other,” the archbishop said. “This tryptic is explosive, and for me,
the message is very clear: This is a church that has chosen to blend with
history and with the preference of the poor.”
“What the cardinals and priests who opposed (St. Romero’s
canonization) don’t understand is that (St. Romero’s) faith was not
theoretical, it was a faith blended with current times, charity, justice and
the forces of a changing world,” Archbishop Paglia said.
Before sunrise Oct. 14 thousands of pilgrims stood in line
to enter St. Peter’s Square for the canonization Mass; many of them were wearing
white and blue scarves and hats, the colors of El Salvador’s flag.
“We have been waiting since midnight and we haven’t
slept because we want to be among those privileged to be here for the 6 million
Salvadorans who wanted to come,” Jose Antonio Garcia Garcia, a Salvadoran
pilgrim living in Rome, told CNS.
“It is a historic event, a transcendental day,”
Liliana Emeldy Reyes, another pilgrim who traveled from El Salvador, told CNS.
As St. Romero is known for defending the poor and the
victims of El Salvador’s military repression in the 1970s, some viewed his
legacy as politicized. Reyes told CNS she was among those who had a negative opinion
of him until a few years ago.
“Many people would say
that he was polarizing and that he wasn’t a universal person but only fighting
for the left,” Reyes told CNS. She changed her mind when she met pilgrims
who traveled to El Salvador for his beatification in 2015. “Now I know
that he is a just man,” she said.
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