With respect I think Fr Geoff Wheaton (The Tablet, 21 February 2015) misses the point of the decision to confirm the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The archbishop is not deemed to be a martyr because he said nice fuzzy warm things about the poor but because he was killed out of the tyrants' hatred for the Catholic faith.
Indicative of this is the fact that Romero was killed whilst saying Mass at the point of the consecration. The tyrant slayed the shepherd of the Lord at the moment the archbishop was bringing the creator of the world in corporal presence in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Killing him during the Mass strikes at the heart of the Catholic faith.
The supposed delay in advancing Romero’s cause is in my view less to do with some sinister plot in the Holy See under Pope John Paul II or Benedict XVI - both have spoken highly of Romero and the former admitted the beatification process to proceed - but because of the hijacking of Romero’s cause by those in the Church with a political agenda, pushing so called liberation theology.
That Romero is now a posterboy for liberation theology I think would come as a shock to the archbishop, whose election to the see of San Salvador was lamented by those same liberals as he was too conservative for them.
Romero is a model archbishop. He embraced the fullness of Church teachings and protected his flock and the rights of the church. I hope that his beatification will be done in his San Salvador instead of St Peter's so that his flock can be present.
Hopefully it will not be too much longer before he is raised to the full glories of the altar and canonised. But I think this would be achieved quicker if people prayed for his intercession as a pastor and shepherd rather than a political activist. Whether Pope Francis will wait for a miracle prior to canonisation will have to be seen.
Christopher Keeffe, West Harrow, Middlesex
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