Beatification for 'voice of the voiceless' Romero draws hundreds of thousands in El Salvador

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Welle

Beatification for 'voice of the voiceless' Romero draws hundreds of thousands in El Salvador

Thousands have come to the Salvadoran capital to celebrate the beginning of Archbishop Oscar Romero's path to sainthood. Romero was assassinated by far-right militias in 1980.

Date 23.05.2015

Thousands gathered in San Salvador on Saturday to attend an open air mass celebrating the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero, whose defense of the poor and repressed divided both his home nation of El Salvador and the Catholic Church.

Officials expected the crowd to swell to up to 280,000, while four presidents, six cardinals and more than one hundred bishops also came to pay their respects to the "Voice of the Voiceless."

In a written statement, Pope Francis praised Romero as one of "the best children of the church" for the way he supported "the poorest and most marginalized" in society.

US President Barack Obama also hailed Romero's beatification, calling him an inspiration and a martyr who "persevered in the fact of opposition from extremes on both sides. He fearlessly confronted the evils he saw, guided by the needs of his beloved pueblo, the poor and oppressed people of El Salvador."



Read more: http://www.dw.de/beatification-for-voice-of-the-voiceless-romero-draws-hundreds-of-thousands-in-el-salvador/a-18472382

[H2O Man]

1. Recommended.

Oscar Romero was a great man.

[think]

2. +1

[pnwmom]

3. Thanks, Judi Lynn!

[Judi Lynn]

4. Guardian, Wednesday 22 March 2000, on his assassination:

The killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the most notorious crimes of the cold war. Was the CIA to blame?

Tom Gibb uncovers new evidence about the murder of El Salvador's spiritual leader

Tom Gibb
The Guardian, Wednesday 22 March 2000

San Salvador. In the bright morning sunlight of March 24 1980, a car stopped outside the Church of the Divine Providence. A lone gunman stepped out, unhurried. Resting his rifle on the car door, he aimed carefully down the long aisle to where El Salvador's archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was saying mass. A single shot rang out. Romero staggered and fell. The blood pumped from his heart, soaking the little white disks of scattered host.

Romero's murder was to become one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the cold war. The motive was clear. He was the most outspoken voice against the death squad slaughter gathering steam in the US backyard. The ranks of El Salvador's leftwing rebels were being swelled by priests who preached that the poor should seek justice in this world, not wait for the next. Romero was the "voice of those without voice", telling soldiers not to kill.

The US vowed to make punishment of the archbishop's killers a priority. It could hardly do otherwise as President Reagan launched the largest US war effort since Vietnam to defeat the rebels. He needed support in Washington, which meant showing that crimes like shooting archbishops and nuns would not be tolerated.

The ordering of the murder was blamed on the bogeyman of the story, a military intelligence officer called Major Roberto D'Aubuisson who had, conveniently for Washington, recently left the army. In the weeks before the murder, he was repeatedly on television using military intelligence files to denounce "guerrillas". Those he accused were often murdered. Romero was near the top of the list.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/23/features11.g21

[Judi Lynn]

5. Salvadorans Flock to Honor Beloved Archbishop on Path to Sainthood

Salvadorans Flock to Honor Beloved Archbishop on Path to Sainthood
By ELISABETH MALKINMAY 23, 2015

SAN SALVADOR — Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of El Salvador’s capital on Saturday to celebrate the beatification of Óscar Romero, a Roman Catholic archbishop who walked with his people in their poverty.

Under a bright sun, people joined in the songs and prayers of the ritual that blessed Archbishop Romero, who was assassinated here as he celebrated evening Mass on March 24, 1980. As symbols were carried to the stage to commemorate his final step toward sainthood, one stood out: the eucharist that Archbishop Romero was unable to complete.

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Catholic pilgrims camped out in the rain early Saturday in the plaza in San Salvador.
Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
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. . .

“In his embrace, you could feel his great love for us, the poor, because we are poor,” said Victoria Ramírez, 51, an office cleaner. “We felt protected by him — but who protected him?”

“He was our savior,” Ms. Ramírez continued. “Even though the church says he’s theirs, he is ours. He always will be. The church always represents the rich. They want to take power over him — but he is ours.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/world/americas/salvadorans-flock-to-honor-beloved-archbishop-on-path-to-sainthood.html?_r=0

[AngryOldDem]

6. I am absolutely thrilled at this.

Romero is one of my heroes. He deserves this, more so than a lot of the people the Church has beatified/canonized over the years.

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. I once met the intellectual author of his murder, Roberto D'Aubuisson.

When he was running for president in 1984. Dude had the eyes of a snake.

[Judi Lynn]

9. What a hell that would have been, had "Blowtorch Bob" won the Presidency.

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[/center]
It's a nightmare imagining a man who discovered a preference for using blowtorches on political prisoners sitting the the President's office in San Salvador. Things couldn't get much worse than that.

The very idea of seeing him in person is horrid. That's way too close to a monster!

[KJG52]

8. You can always count on Barack Obama...

Obama tars the left with the brush of "extremism," equating the murderers of Romero of the fascist right, the oligarchs and latifundistas of El Salvador, with the movements for social justice in Latin America. Obama probably didn't even know who Romero was until his staff briefed him and someone put this little snippet, redolent with "High-Broderism," into his hand.

[MisterP]

15. ah, the old "two fires" theory

you'd think that after scads of 90s UN reports on how the guerrillas were responsible for 9-11% of the total deaths across Guatemala and El Salvador (and how those were all soldiers, and in fact they pulled back when they used conscripts as frontline cannon fodder) the old "extreme left and right"--which, I might add, was the watchword for all these military and facade regimes pretending to be reining in the death squads--would be quite dead

[forest444]

10. Thank you, Judi Lynn for these very good news - and to Pope Francis for this long overdue initiative

One which the Catholic hierarchy had long opposed, I might add.

For those not familiar with Archbishop Romero, I recommend Oliver Stone's 1986 film, Salvador. While Romero isn't the central character in the plot (he is in Romero - with Raúl Juliá in the starring role), it does capture the controversies during the early days of El Salvador's civil war, circa 1980. D'Aubuisson (the fiend pictured above) is, of course, one of the Salvadorean figures also covered in the movie.

Thanks largely to the media, Salvador became one of Stone's overlooked films - but, I feel, unfairly so. A great thriller, even if one forgets that it all actually happened.

[47of74]

11. Take that Ronald Reagan, Death Squad John, and the rest of the PNAC cowards.

[DLnyc]

12. "Si me matan resucitaré en el pueblo salvadoreño"

Headline in El Diario in New York

(Something like: "If they kill me I will be resurrected in the Salvodoran people.&quot

[Judi Lynn]

14. Thank you, DLnyc. So moving. Clearly he is deeply loved today within "el pueblo salvadoreño."

His words will live on around the world, as well.

I hope those responsible will hear his words when they are trying to sleep, forever.