Salvadoran bishops anxious for canonization of Archbishop Romero

March 24, 2017

During their ad limina visit to Rome this week, the bishops of El Salvador inquired anxiously about the progress of the cause for canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Archbishop Romero, an outspoken advocate for human rights, was shot down while celebrating Mass in San Salvador in 1980. He was beatified in 2015.

Archbishop José Luis Escobar, the president of the Salvadoran bishops’ conference, reported that Pope Francis had been clearly sympathetic to the cause for Archbishop Romero’s canonization. “However, he has not given us a date,” the Salvadoran prelate reported.

The canonization cause is now in a “decisive phase,” Archbishop Escobar revealed. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has just begun investigating a reported miracle attributed to the intercession of the late archbishop. The report involves a Salvadoran woman who was seriously ill while pregnant; after prayers to Archbishop Romero, the woman regained her health and delivered a healthy child.

 

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Further information:

• Bishops of El Salvador ask the Pope to canonize Oscar Romero in their country (Rome Reports)
• Pope Francis wants Romero sites to become places of pilgrimage, says archbishop (CNS)