Archbishop Romero on road to beatification

During his recent flight to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI told journalists that the cause of Archbishop Oscar Romero's beatification was making good progress. He added that he supported the cause, which was opened by his predecessor in 1997.

The Pope's favourable comments on Archbishop Romero have come as a surprise to many, as the Salvadoran archbishop, who was murdered by a right wing death squad while saying Mass, was seen at the time as the champion of Liberation Theology.

Mgr Romero was a constant and severe critic of the country's extreme right government, which he often accused of oppressing the poor. This made him look as siding with Communist regimes, especially as he often attacked US President Jimmy Carter for supporting right wing governments in his attempts to combat the threat of Communism in Latin America.

The Pope himself, when he was Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, published documents criticising Liberation Theology. However, he explained to journalists that those documents were not meant to destroy the commitment to justice but to guide it along the right path.

He reiterated that Mgr Romero was "a great witness of the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace against dictatorship". For these reasons, the Pope said, the man merits beatification.

But Mgr Romero's memory, he said, "must be liberated from the ideological deformations of those who had sought to appropriate it for political reasons". He was referring to those who saw Liberation Theology in Marxist terms... centred on struggle between the poor and the rich.

Two English bishops have welcomed the Pope's declaration about and his support for Mgr Romero's beatification. One said that Archbishop Romero was an inspiration not only to Catholics but to Christians of all denominations, describing him as "one of the great bishops of the Church".

Another said that Archbishop Romero had a global appeal, which most of the saints canonised by John Paul Il lacked. "He is someone who is universally known", adding that Catholics would relate more easily to Romero's struggle for justice than other saints whose piety might be harder to emulate.

The Pope's statements on Mgr Romero were also welcomed by The Catholic Herald.

Describing the archbishop "as a great witness of the faith, deserving beatification", the UK weekly stated that the assassinated archbishop "was, to the core and to his death at the altar, a man who sought peace and justice for all in the name of Christ. As he once said, 'I am obliged, by divine command, to give my life for those who love, who are all Salvadorans, even for those who are going to assassinate me'."