Pope eyes fast beatification for Salvador's Romero

[Judi Lynn]

Pope eyes fast beatification for Salvador's Romero
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press August 18, 2014 Updated 2 hours ago

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis opened the way Monday to a quick beatification for Oscar Romero, saying there are no more doctrinal problems blocking the process for the slain Salvadoran archbishop who is one of the heroes of the liberation theology movement in Latin America.

Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, was gunned down in 1980 while celebrating Mass. He had spoken out against repression by the Salvadoran army at the beginning of the country's 1980-1992 civil war between the right-wing government and leftist rebels.

~snip~

The congregation launched a crackdown on liberation theology under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, fearing what was deemed as Marxists excesses. The movement holds the view that Jesus' teachings imbue followers with a duty to fight for social and economic justice.

~snip~
Traditionally, the church has restricted the martyr designation to people who were killed out of hatred for the Catholic faith. Francis said he wanted theologians to study whether those who were killed because of their actions doing God's work could also be considered martyrs. "What I would like is that they clarify when there's a martyrdom for hatred of the faith — for confessing the faith — as well as for doing the work for the other that Jesus commands," Francis said.

Questions over that distinction have been at the root of the theological debate over whether Romero was killed by El Salvador's right-wing death squads for professing the faith or because of his political activism in support of the poor.

More:
http://www.centredaily.com/2014/08/18/4310636/pope-eyes-fast-beatification-for.html#storylink=cpy

[regnaD kciN]

1. 34 years is "fast"...???

Actual translation here: now that there is finally a Pope who isn't a rabid right-winger, the Church can stop ignoring the case of a martyred archbishop dismissed as a "Commie sympathizer" by the Raygun administration and its successors. Maybe the four Maryknoll sisters raped and murdered by Salvadorian security forces (and blamed for their own deaths by Raygun tools like Jeanne Kirkpatrick) can be next?

[TexasProgresive]

2. YES!

San Oscar, ruega por nosotros!

[Peregrine Took]

3. WAY overdue! Fast track it! n/t

[msongs]

4. follow the $$ nt

[Peace Patriot]

5. The question seems mind-boggling...

"...whether Romero was killed by El Salvador's right-wing death squads for professing the faith or because of his political activism in support of the poor." (my emphasis)

Romero never did ANYTHING political. He preached love and NOT KILLING THE POOR. First off. So the issue is stated in an off-kilter way in the article. Romero was CLEARLY following the teachings of Jesus. He was NOT advocating political candidates, or political parties or political issues, nor did he support taking up arms. It was the rightwing death squads, supported by Ronald Reagan & cronies, who INTERPRETED the TEACHINGS OF JESUS as POLITICAL.

Love they neighbor.

That's basically all Romero ever said. And they killed him for it. Because THEIR philosophy is rob anyone who has something you want and kill anyone who gets in the way of more wealth for you and your cronies.

What is mind-boggling is that this was even a question for the prelates of a religion that purports to be based on the teachings of Jesus. And it tells you something about the Vatican as it was constituted prior to Pope Frances. It was a fascist-run Vatican.

I don't support or oppose "sainthood" for Bishop Romero. I think that the whole process of creating "saints" is absurd. What a "saint" is, in the view of the Church, is a person who has died and gone to Heaven and is now with God. And what it means is that these prelates think they ARE God, or at the least get tweets DIRECT FROM GOD, telling them who is actually, in point of fact, not in hell, not in purgatory but actually, real-time, right now (and forever) in the "presence of God" on the other side of the Singularity. It's ridiculous. They don't have any such knowledge. But they PRETEND TO. It's okay to honor people who have led especially good lives and have followed the teachings of Jesus especially well, and have shown courage and/or have been murdered because of their goodness. I honor Bishop Romero and revere his memory for these reasons. If that is all that "sainthood" meant, I wouldn't object to it. But this God-like stance that Vatican authorities take, in presuming to know that some soul is in Heaven, is an outright lie, and they do it for reasons of power and preserving their old boys' club.

I DON'T think that this is Pope Francis' motive, exactly. He's got a lot on his hands, with these fascists. And I think he is, in effect, throwing a sop to them, by getting into "sainthood" politics. It is a sort of endorsement of this absurd, God-presumptive male club, but with an edge to it--"sainthood" for someone whom their fascist cronies in Washington DC and El Salvador MURDERED. His primary motive, in my view, is elevating the status of someone who really did follow and preach the teachings of Jesus, because he feels kinship with such a man. But underlying the USE of this archaic, male assertion of knowing God's mind and the fate of a soul in God's view, is Pope Francis' own service to this lie, partly in the interest of the power of the Church. He likely doesn't think of it as a lie. But I do.

Another absurdity about "sainthood" is the company that Bishop Romero's name will now be joined to. That company includes, for instance, "Saint" Cyril of Alexandria who ordered the horrible murder of the last philosopher of the Alexandra Library, a woman name Hypatia, who was famous for her lectures on mathematics and other such topics, and was beloved by her students (including at least one bishop--though she was not a Christian). "Saint" Cyril--who had Hypatia skinned alive--is STILL a "saint" in the eyes of the Catholic Church. He has been deemed to be WITH GOD. That name is still "on their books." He was as revolting a figure as the death squad members who murdered Romero. And now they are saying that "Saint" Cyril and Saint Romero will be equivalent. That is absurd.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thank you for the information regarding how things work in reference to naming sainted people.

Your assessment of "Saint" Cyril would have to be totally true. I had never heard of him before reading your comments. Horrendous background on his life. So glad you took the time to point it out here.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Granted that it happened a lo-o-ong time ago (415 AD, to be exact), but...

...Cyril was made a "saint" fairly recently (in the 19th Century). The male-run, patriarchal Church CLAIMS to be directly "descended from" Saint Peter--creating a sort of fantasy "lineage" that excludes women, akin to the absurd Trinity theology that Cyril helped create (Father, Son and Holy Ghost--no mother, no women in the Godhead). They thereby claim to possess authority from God (i.e., conferred on Peter by Jesus, in the spurious Biblical passage, "Upon this rock, I will build my church.&quot Having taken so much upon themselves--these male prelates who claim a "twitter" to God--they thus have a heavy responsibility NOT to make murderers into "saints" and to apologize and REMOVE such names from the roster of figures whom people are supposed to PRAY TO for intercession with God!

It makes God look bad, you know what I mean? But they won't, because admitting BIG MISTAKES like this rattles their false stance of power over others.

Cyril is even more than a "saint." He was also designated "a Doctor of the Church," meaning that he was one of the monoliihic-minded fascists who 'doctored' religious beliefs in the early Christian movement to conform to set "dogmas" and to conform as well to the requirements of state power--that is, conformity of obedience to the men with weapons who were running things. He was a very noxious influence, in this respect and others, including persecution of the Jews and persecution and book-burning against more humanistic Christian sects (such as the Pelagians, the Nestorians and the Gnostics).

"A long time ago" is just yesterday, as to how the power-mad fascists of the Vatican view themselves and their institution. It's a long time ago that Cyril ordered Hypatia's horrible death and rang in one thousand years of state-enforced religion, ignorance, disease, poverty, misery and feudalism, not to mention the incredible corruption of the Christian message: Love thy neighbor. But it's only yesterday to those who made Cyril a "saint," and to those, today, who have not de-sainted him. They thus have endorsed the murder of that marvelous woman, Hypatia, and have encased their woman-less Trinity in cement.

They are culpable--those in the Vatican today, and those who made Cyril a "saint" in the 19th century. They owe women an apology. Hypatia was the first "witch" whom they slew in their long rampage for power. She is the one who should be "sainted," from all reports--not Cyril. She was involved in efforts to keep the peace among the various religions in Alexandria, a city famous for its tolerance and its scholarship, which, under Cyril's bishopric, descended into religious riots, with mobs of monks and priests and so-called 'Christians" murdering and robbing people. She was a Christian in spirit if not in name--a REAL Christian. That the Church instead elevated Cyril is appalling. And pointed.

And what of the Catholic nuns--Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan--who were raped and murdered by a rightwing death squad on orders of the El Salvadoran National Guard,* on December 2, 1980? Bishop Romero had been murdered on March 24 of the same year. The nuns and lay missionary were volunteering for charitable work with poor refugees. It is quite amazing that they did so after Romero's murder. What courage to go to El Salvador for Catholic charity work in that circumstance!

That was such a terrible year--Reagan committing treason (re the U.S. Iranian hostages), worshiped by the corporate press, "Saint" Ronnie getting elected president in November, then INCREASING MILITARY AID to El Salvador after these women were murdered, following Romero's murder! What utter scumbags the Reaganites were! If people only knew! But they don't. The $$$ press doesn't want them to know that Reagan was scum. Or--to put it more accurately--the $$$ press doesn't think Reagan was scum. They approve of nuns and bishops getting murdered, so they and their masters don't have to share any of their $$$ with the poor, and can steal land and resources, and enslave workers, all the more, without pesky Jesus freaks like Romero, Clarke, Ford, Kazel and Donovan making them look bad.

These women should also be candidates for sainthood, if Romero is. They surely were as good and courageous as Romero, in following the teachings of Jesus, and were murdered for doing so. The violence against them was all of a piece. Same situation. Same perps, in Washington DC and El Salvador. Same country. Same year. Same courage of the good in promoting Jesus-like love and peace. Maybe they are being considered. I don't know for sure that they aren't. Though I find "sainthood" absurd, it only seems fair that, if the Vatican has taken Romero off their leftist shit-list, they ought to take these women off as well, and give their honors to all five.



---------------------

*(The El Salvadoran National Guard general--Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Cassanova--now lives in Florida. Reagan officials tried to cover up his guilt. Florida sure seems to pile up with protected killers.)

[Judi Lynn]

8. Apparently their plan is that they are supposed to be able to torture, torment, treat human beings

like trash, objects at the best, and no one is allowed to try to help human beings heal enough to attempt to continue living after the abuse, the broken lives, the greater helplessness, the despair. People who try to bring comfort get slaughtered, after being terrorized, abused first.

Seems impossible that a world could work this way, even for a day.

Went to Google images to get a glance at this idiot monster's photo, Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Cassanova, of FLORIDA, (who would look for a war criminal there?) and saw the images of the four down a few rows from the top. He is going to be tied to their murders forever.

https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSND_enUS566US566&q=Gen.+Carlos+Eugenio+Vides+Cassanova&gws_rd=ssl&tbm=isch

What a filthy shame he will not be legally held responsible for what he has done, and ordered others to do, forever.

These four dedicated women paid the same horrendous price paid by Archbishop Romero. I have seen photos of where and how their remains were discovered, and that is pure evil. They are in every sense as martyred as the Archbishop.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Why Pope Francis Wants to Declare Murdered Archbishop Romero a Saint

08.24.14

Why Pope Francis Wants to Declare Murdered Archbishop Romero a Saint

The pontiff who earlier denounced the “tyranny of capitalism” is now opening the way to sainthood for clergy killed because they were identified with “the theology of liberation”


One of the things that made Archbishop Oscar Romero so extraordinary, I realized long after I met him and long after he was murdered, was that at first he seemed to be so ordinary. When I went to interview him in early 1980, I was led to believe I’d be meeting a man who would change the world, or, at least, the little world of El Salvador. But he seemed on first encounter to be very gray, more a forgettable clerk than a firebrand cleric. Not a revolutionary, certainly. Not a martyr. Not a saint.

In his quiet, affable, good-humored way, he never seemed to want to be any of those things, in any case, and yet in the minds of millions of people, especially in Latin America, he became all of them.

Only the popes held out against him. For three decades the theological machinery of John Paul II and Benedict XVI prevented the martyred Romero from advancing toward the formal title of saint, a long process that was fast-tracked for John Paul II himself, and also for much less sympathetic figures like the founder of the wealthy and secretive order Opus Dei.

Yes, symbolic gestures were made. John Paul II twice visited Romero’s tomb in the cathedral in San Salvador. But the conservative popes from Poland and Germany didn't like the way people fighting for the rights of the poor — some of whom were communists, many of whom were leftists wrapped up in what was called “the theology of liberation” — adopted Romero as a symbol. John Paul and Benedict both detested that current in the church, seeing it as a front for politics, not faith. As Benedict told reporters in 2007, “the problem was that a political party wanted to take (Romero) for itself as a flag, as an emblematic figure.” Benedict conceded this was “unjust,” but “for reasons of prudence,” it was said, Romero’s beatification was put on hold.

More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/24/why-pope-francis-wants-to-declare-murdered-archbishop-romero-a-saint.html