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A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 13 OctOber 2018
In El Salvador, slain archbishop long seen as saint

By MARCOS ALEMAN, As-
sociated Press
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador
(AP) — Bespectacled, smil-
ing and with close-cropped
hair, the late Archbishop
Oscar Romero’s visage
gazes kindly from postage
stamps, handmade busts
on sale at the San Salva-
dor cathedral, even from
a huge black-dot mural on
the side of the Foreign Min-
istry.
On Sunday in the Vatican,
Pope Francis will official-
ly make Romero a saint
nearly four decades after
he was martyred by an as-
sassin’s bullet to the heart.
But for many Salvadoran
Roman Catholic devotees
who already know him as
“Saint Romero of the Amer-
icas” that will only formalize
something they have long
known in their hearts.
“He was a great man. He
already was a saint,” said
Jose David Santos, 73, in
a recent interview before In this Oct. 3. 2018 photo, pigeons fly in front of a mural of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, on a wall of the Metropolitan Cathedral
traveling to Rome along in San Salvador, El Salvador.
with 5,000 other Salvador- Associated Press
ans to be present for the studies at Virginia Com- de Hilario said, weeping, going to kill him. He told us, immoral commands and
canonization. monwealth University. in front of the tomb. “We just like that. But he didn’t even asked President Jim-
“He was a great example “I’ve found a number of come every Sunday to visit want to talk about it,” said my Carter to cut off U.S. aid
of humility,” added Santos, people that have tattoos him.” Chacon, who first met to El Salvador.
clad in a white shirt with of his image on their arms ... No place is more of a Romero in 1963 when he Taking such a bold stance
Romero’s face imprinted a lot of popular murals and shrine to Romero than the officiated her wedding. against the dictatorship,
on it. “He professed love artwork on the streets of Chacon family home in Romero’s assassin was Chesnut said, was essen-
for the poor man. He de- the capital,” Chesnut con- San Salvador. It was here contracted by right-wing tially “signing his death war-
nounced injustices. He tinued. “So yeah, it’s a real, that Romero sought refuge, death squads, but none rant.” El Salvador’s civil war
defended victims. He criti- genuine kind of grass-roots, watching TV and dining of those who ordered the ended with peace accords
cized the violence of the working-class, popular de- with the family to forget, killing were ever punished, in 1992. But the country is
military and of the guer- votion that you don’t often even if briefly, the death in part due to an amnesty now plagued by hyper-
rillas.” Romero was slain see with a lot of other, Euro- threats that were mounting for civil war-era crimes that violent street gangs, and
March 24, 1980, a day af- pean-born Catholic saints.” daily. was ruled unconstitutional Chesnut said many Salva-
ter he implored the military The fervor for Romero is “He would sit next to my two years ago. dorans turn to Romero for
dictatorship to “cease the such that the cathedral father to watch soap op- Many years after Romero’s solace from that.
repression” against civilians crypt where his remains eras and tell jokes, while death, Pope Francis de- “It’s still one of the most
as the country spiraled to- were interred can barely they prepared his beans for clared him a martyr killed murderous countries on
ward a 12-year civil war. handle the thousands of pil- him. He said that this was because of “hatred of the Earth. ... Few people have
At the time — and still to- grims who arrive to pray in his family. He said this home faith,” paving the way for suffered like Salvadorans
day — some in conserva- front of his tomb, beseech was his Bethany, that he felt his beatification and then have in the last few de-
tive sectors loathed him as him for intervention or give so happy that he had an canonization. cades,” he said.
a “guerrilla in a cassock” thanks. Many also visit the urge to take off his shoes,” “It is the greatest thing we Esteban Fuentes, a 55-year-
for sympathizing with left- hospital chapel where he said Leonor Chacon, 80. can have, it is the greatest old who has been driving a
ist causes. But he was and was murdered while cel- Chacon maintains a col- blessing from heaven, the cab for 35 years in the Sal-
remains broadly popular ebrating Mass. lection of Romero memora- whole world acknowledg- vadoran capital and has
among the poor and work- Maria Isabel de Hilario bilia — his cassock, a shirt, a ing his sainthood,” current a weathered card with an
ing class, whom he passion- never met Romero but is postcard he sent the fam- San Salvador Archbishop image of Romero hanging
ately defended, and many convinced that in 1981, the ily from Mexico City’s Torre Jose Luis Escobar Alas said. from his rear-view mirror,
began lionizing him almost year after his assassination, Latinoamericana, at that “Because not only his per- agreed.
immediately. he visited her on her sick- time the tallest skyscraper son but his teachings as “He has protected me from
“A real man of the people. bed. in Latin America — and well are being canonized.” so much evil,” Fuentes said.
... And so even prior to his “I didn’t know who he was, hundreds have come to Often said to have been in- “I started working in the
canonization, even shortly and he came to my bed the home to hear her. On fluenced by the leftist Liber- middle of the war, and I
after his martyrdom, we see at the hospital. He put his a recent day she showed ation Theology movement came out alive. I believe
this almost kind of folk-saint, hand on my head and a photo of him taken in sweeping through the Latin that Romero kept me alive
popular-saint devotion told me: ‘It will no longer March 1980, days before American church at the and continues to watch
springing up,” said Andrew be necessary for you to be his death. time, Romero famously over me in these times of
Chesnut, chair in Catholic here. You will be healed,” “He knew that they were urged soldiers to disobey great problems.”q