Pope OKs beatification for US brother slain in Guatemala war

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has decreed that an American religious brother, James Miller, was killed out of hatred for the Catholic faith during Guatemala’s civil war and can be beatified.

The Vatican said Thursday that Francis approved a decree recognizing that Miller, from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, died as a martyr on Feb. 13, 1982, in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Miller, 37, had been working with indigenous youths as a member of the De La Salle Christian Brothers when he was killed by three masked men.

No one was ever arrested in the slaying. Miller’s fellow brothers reported receiving warnings that Guatemala’s armed forces intelligence unit, the G-2 death squad, was looking for them.

A U.N. truth commission determined that some 245,000 people were killed or disappeared during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, which pitted right-wing, U.S.-backed governments against leftist guerrillas and indigenous peoples. The vast majority of the killings were attributed to the army or to pro-government paramilitary groups.

Being declared a martyr exempts Miller from the usual beatification requirement of having a miracle attributed to his intercession confirmed. However, such a miracle would be required for him to be declared a saint. A date for his beatification has not been set.

Miller is the second American slain in Guatemala to move a step closer to possible sainthood in recent years. The Rev. Stanley Rother, who was gunned down during the Guatemalan conflict in 1981, was beatified as a martyr in his native Oklahoma last year.