According to a report in Avvenire, the weekly newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, the beatification of El Salvador's martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero will take place on May 23 at a ceremony in El Salvador, the day before Pentecost Sunday.
The date was announced yesterday, as Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, postulator of Romero's cause for sainthood, was visiting El Salvador. The Avvenire report noted that the announcement comes on the eve of another significant anniversary in El Salvador, that of the March 12, 1977 assassination of Salvadoran Jesuit Rutilio Grande, three years before the death of Romero. According to the report, the church may be beginning an effort toward the canonization of this early victim of repression by the Salvadoran oligarchy that will parallel Romero's cause. Monsignor Paglia told reporters in El Salvador that a "close bond" unites Romero and Grande from a "theological and pastoral perspective" because "it is impossible to understand Romero without understanding Rutilio Grande."
According to the report, Pope Francis met Grande once in the 1970s, though they did not speak together. Pope Francis described him as a priest who "left the center to go to the peripheries," a model that has become a familiar refrain of his pontificate.
The Holy See's Congregation for the Causes of Saints has yet to make an announcement on the official date of the beatification.
On February 3rd, Pope Francis recognized Archbishop Romero's martyrdom "in odium fidei (out of hatred of the faith).
