It’s funny how a choice of words can make familiar things seem strange. Huge crowds gathered in San Salvador for the beatification of Oscar Romero, reported Joshua Partlow of The Washington Post in a despatch carried by The Independent on Sunday. “It is the first time a Salvadoran has received this religious honour.”I suppose beatification is an honour, but that makes it sound extrinsic to the merits of the beatus. When Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, was made a Knight of the Bath in 1978, not many people thought the better of him. The honour was taken away just in time before he was murdered 11 years later. But saints aren’t demoted. Yes, I know about St Christopher, but he’s still a saint.Anyway, it is not surprising that the vocabulary deployed b