Romero support marks pope’s guidance
Francis focuses on ‘poor church for the poor’
Los Angeles Times
San Salvador, El Salvador
— Pope Francis’ decision to beatify assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero offers the most clear signal yet of the pontiff’s determination to refocus the direction of the world’s largest Christian organization.
Francis ended years of debate when he declared Romero, a pivotal figure in the Roman Catholic Church’s struggle with conservative and progressive forces, a martyr. Doing so cleared the way for Romero’s beatification — the step before sainthood — which took place May 23 in El Salvador.
Romero’s advocacy for the poor in especially violent, difficult times of war and repression fell squarely in line with Francis’ emphasis on “a poor church for the poor,” a theme that he inaugurated in the first days after his election to the papacy in March 2013 as the first pontiff from the Americas.
A forceful and often solitary voice for those killed, kidnapped and tortured in an El Salvador sliding into civil war, Romero established a record that enabled Francis to sweep aside claims by some that the Salvadoran archbishop’s work was more political than pastoral and tainted with leftist leanings. Romero was slain by a right-wing death squad as he said Mass 35 years ago.
“Romero is an icon of the church that Francis is seeking to build,” said Elisabetta Pique, an expert on the papacy and author of “Pope Francis: Life and Revolution.” It is a church “with pastors that are close to the people and especially to the marginalized and those who suffer most. The beatification is another clear sign of the direction of his papacy.”
An earlier signal from the pope about the direction that he wanted to take the church came in his little-noticed meeting with the Peruvian founder of Liberation Theology, a philosophy that was soundly out of favor with Pope John Paul II, who believed, or was convinced by his most conservative advisers, that it injected Marxism into work for the poor.
Father Gustavo Gutierrez and his supporters were shunned and punished for decades by the Vatican and church hierarchy, which did its best to replace progressive bishops with those from ultraconservative groups such as Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ. An invitation for him to meet with Francis about six months after the pope’s ascension, not announced and only later confirmed by the Vatican, was a remarkable shift in attitude, and, in the view of many, a vindication for Liberation Theology.
Francis “is saying things I’ve wanted my church to say for a long time,” said U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a Catholic who attended the Romero beatification. As a congressional staffer in the 1980s, he became something of an expert on El Salvador and witnessed the myriad attempts by church conservatives, and the U.S. government, to vilify Romero and the left. “I am hoping this is not just a moment in history but will last and that you are going to see a more vibrant church, more outspoken on behalf of the poor, and governments that will address poverty.”
In 1978, two years before Romero’s death, a Polish bishop became pope. John Paul II was guided organically by his fight against, and suffering under, communism. Some observers say that made him tone-deaf to fights against rightists who painted the enemy as Marxist. Romero recalled in his diary his thwarted efforts to make John Paul understand the persecution of his church by a brutal rightwing government.
Although Benedict XVI, John Paul’s successor and Francis’ predecessor, is the one who formally reopened the Romero case for sainthood, he was a dogmatic conservative more interested in a pure, if smaller, Catholic Church. Francis, by contrast, is the epitome of inclusiveness.
Francis’ new direction has irritated some of the more conservative members of the church, especially in the U.S., but other Vatican observers say it would be a mistake to cast Francis as a left-winger, noting that his shift also has a lot to do with changing history. “The further we got from the Cold War, the better Romero looked,” said Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit — like Francis — who analyzes Vatican affairs for the National Catholic Reporter. “Nevertheless, the beatification does mark a big change in the church’s orientation and is a symbolic moment in Francis’ papacy.”