Archbishop Romero on sainthood track: 'Overwhelming joy' in El Salvador [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Archbishop Romero on sainthood track: 'Overwhelming joy' in El Salvador

By NICHOLAS PHILLIPS AND TRACY WILKINSON

Los Angeles Times
February 4, 2015 Updated 2 hours ago

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — When Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot to death as he said Mass, Danlio Macias' family mourned as if one of their own relatives had been killed.

"I see these photos," Macias said, eyes red with tears as he visited the site of Romero's murder, now a small museum, "and all the trauma comes back."

Romero was slain 35 years ago next month in a hospital chapel here in the capital of El Salvador by a sniper acting on the orders of right-wing forces that - with U.S. backing - would wage war against leftist guerrillas for more than a decade.

Pope Francis this week took the most significant step yet toward proclaiming Romero a saint. On Tuesday, he recognized the late archbishop of San Salvador, 62 at the time of his death, as a martyr, killed because of "hatred" of his Roman Catholic faith.

It had been a matter of dispute among more conservative factions of the church. Many of Romero's foes argued he was killed for his politics, not his religion. In fact, Romero only slowly came to oppose the government, siding strongly with the poor and pronouncing shortly before he was killed that soldiers who were slaughtering civilians should not obey orders that go against their God.

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