Can Romero unite his nation now?

“It’s Francis, it’s Francis!” exclaimed the watchman at the gate to the car parking space by San Salvador’s cathedral. “He’s the one who’s done it: he couldn’t bear to wait any longer.”

Another man, Rolando, praying quietly at Archbishop Romero’s tomb in the crypt, had not yet heard the news of the Pope’s proclamation that the late prelate died a martyr, meaning he is on the way to being beatified. “I’m covered in goose bumps just thinking about it,” he told me. “I was five years old and we had to run to escape the bombing at his funeral: mum was crying, dad was crying. But now, he’s our saint, he’s our first saint, a saint for all Latin America – a multinational saint! Sofia, the waitress in the fried chicken shop beamed with delight: “Of course he‘s a martyr. How could he not be?”

What a day to be alive and in San Salvador! Before dawn I woke to the deafening din of the hundreds of little green parrots which roost overnight in the trees outside the Romero Centre and chapel of the UCA, the Jesuits’ Central American University, and its guesthouse where we are staying. Shortly afterwards a text arrived announcing the decree from the Vatican.

Outside the campus, the streets in this upper-class neighbourhood are awash with red, white and blue bunting and flags: the colours of ARENA, the right-wing political party founded by Major Roberto D’Abuisson, who, according to the United Nations Truth Commission, masterminded Romero’s assassination. El Salvador is in full campaign mode for the municipal and congressional elections to be held on 1 March and, whist much has changed, the country is still deeply divided between the wealthy minority and those who struggle to survive in a brutally harsh environment of violence, poverty and the unresolved legacy of the decade-long civil war.

Over on the other side of town, the red flags of the FMLN, the ruling party of the left-wing former guerrilla movement, flutter over the Fe y Alegria - Faith and Joy - school run by the Poor Clare sisters. Twenty-eight-year old Katia Ayala, a psychologist working with the children traumatised by the violence of the gangs who operate a turf-war in the neighbourhood, told us: “I’m thrilled because Francis knows Archbishop Romero deserved this because of his work with people who are poor and discriminated against.”

I also spoke to Mgr Ricardo Urioste, Romero’s vicar-general and president of the Romero Foundation who, at 89, has done more than anyone to preserve and promote the legacy of the martyred archbishop. He said: “The decree is a triumph for the truth: I felt so happy, giving thanks to God. Those people who don’t like him, it’s because they don’t know him, they believed the false accusations they read about him.”

Maybe now, with this decree from Rome, even those who hated him will have to change. At Mgr Urioste’s side, the secretary of the Romero Foundation, Marisa Martinez, has been planning the Thanksgiving Mass to be held today at the Chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital where Archbishop Romero lived and died. No one has more reason to pray that Romero can bring healing to a divided nation: she is the sister of the late Roberto D’Abuisson, the death squad leader behind Romero’s assassination.

Clare Dixon heads Cafod's Latin America and Caribbean team

Above: San Salvadorans carry a banner of Archbishop Romero to mark the 34th anniversary of his assassination last year. Photo: CNS/EPA