ARCHBISHOP'S SAINTHOOD POLITICALLY SENSITIVE FOR VATICAN
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dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080300521.html

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press
Friday, August 3, 2007; 7:07 AM

VATICAN CITY -- Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, the outspoken
church leader who was killed in 1980 as he celebrated Mass, has
become as polarizing in death as he was in life.

The campaign to make him a Roman Catholic saint appears to be
languishing, as Vatican officials privately debate whether Romero was
a martyr for the faith or for the political left.

The sensitivity of the issue was clear in remarks last May by Pope
Benedict XVI, as he was flying to Brazil -- his first visit to Latin
America as pontiff.

Benedict told reporters that "Romero as a person merits
beatification," but Vatican officials removed that quote in an
official transcript, keeping only the pope's general praise of the
slain prelate as a "great witness to the faith."

El Salvador was headed toward civil war in 1977, when Romero was
appointed archbishop of the capital, San Salvador. Suspected
guerrillas and leftist opponents of the military-led government were
being killed daily.

The archbishop responded with emotional homilies condemning human
rights abuses by the dictatorship and paramilitary groups, and
advocating for the many impoverished Salvadorans who were being
terrorized.

"Every radio station in Central America was tuned to his broadcast,
because what you had was a leader, a man of great passion and
intelligence, who was telling the reality as the poor people of
Central America perceived that reality," said Robert White, U.S.
ambassador to El Salvador at the time. The day after Romero called on
the nation's military to halt its repression, he was shot while
leading worship in a hospital chapel.

But the archbishop's activism was not universally admired. Romero was
pressing for social justice at a time when Vatican officials were
battling Marxist-inspired liberation theology in Latin America. The
archbishop's work was of great concern in Rome.

Romero also had a difficult relationship with his fellow Salvadoran
priests, and at one point the Vatican received a request to send an
apostolic visitor to El Salvador to either replace Romero or appoint
a superior to control him, according to Roberto Morozzo della Rocca,
who wrote a 2005 biography of Romero called "Primero Dios." The
archbishop's detractors within the clergy -- in El Salvador and Rome -
- may still oppose his beatification.

It didn't help that Romero became a political hero in the region; his
image routinely appears on fliers next to Che Guevara and Salvador
Allende -- icons of the Latin American left. Vatican officials worry
that elevating Romero could unintentionally advance a political
agenda.

"There was the problem that a political side wanted -- wrongly -- to
take him as their flag, as an emblematic figure," Benedict said. "How
should we rightly bring to light his persona, shielding him from
these attempts to use him? This is the problem."

Morozzo della Rocca, a historian at the prestigious Roma Tre
university, says Romero didn't embrace liberation theology
and "wasn't a revolutionary."

"He wanted justice. It's a different thing," the professor said. "He
wanted that this social justice occur without massacres, without war,
without blood being spilled. He wanted a peaceful way."

Morozzo della Rocca's biography has helped allay some fears about his
activism.

Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador and
a close collaborator of Romero's, says Morozzo della Rocca's book has
been key to Romero's cause since it "proves how he was a bishop who
was loyal to the church."

Benedict cited "Primero Dios" during his in-flight news conference,
saying the biography was "important" and that it had "clarified many
points of the question."

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reviewed all of
Romero's writings as part of the beatification process to determine
if he was doctrinally orthodox. Supporters say he cleared the review.

The Vatican's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has acknowledged the
deletion of the pope's endorsement of Romero's beatification from the
Vatican's transcript. But he argued that the Vatican routinely cleans
up the pope's remarks and that the pope also "wanted to be very
respectful" of the saints' congregation, which is still considering
the case.

Both Pope John Paul II and Benedict have said publicly that Romero
was indeed a martyr for the faith, which means he could be beatified
without the Vatican having to confirm a miracle attributed to his
intercession. But the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has made
no public determination on the question.

Another obstacle to sainthood lies outside the direct influence of
the Vatican.

The U.N. truth commission on El Salvador reported in 1993 that Romero
had been ordered killed by El Salvador's notorious death squad
leader, Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson. Today, El Salvador is governed by
the conservative political party D'Aubuisson founded, the Nationalist
Republican Alliance.

In July, the Salvadoran government said it would formally ask the
Vatican to beatify Romero, although it would not accept
responsibility for his slaying. El Salvador's ambassador to the Holy
See, Francisco Soler, called Romero a divisive figure during the war,
but said the archbishop is seen differently after so much time has
passed.

"I think we have matured dramatically in the last 12 to 14 years
since the end of the conflict," he said in a phone interview. "I
don't think it (beatification) would be very disruptive."

Still, Rosa Chavez said that beatification is unlikely to come
quickly.

"Certainly, it's something very complicated for the government to
accept, that it's founder organized the assassination of Romero," he
said during a recent visit to the Vatican.

"But the people themselves understand more clearly who Romero was. So
I think the church prefers to wait a little, but I think the final
decision is clear: Romero will be beatified."