Papal Address to pilgrims from El Savador celebrating St. Oscar Romero

© Vatican Media

Pope Francis Addresses Pilgrims from El Salvador

Celebrating Canonization of Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez

October 15, 2018 17:08ZENIT StaffFrancis

Pope Francis on October 15, 2018, received in Paul VI Hall the many pilgrims from El Salvador, in Rome for the canonization of Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, which took place yesterday, Sunday 14 October, in Saint Peter’s Square.

“The message of Saint Óscar Romero is addressed to all without exception. He repeated strongly that every Catholic must be a martyr because martyr means witness, that is, a witness of God’s message to men,” the Holy Father said. “God wants to be present in our lives and calls us to announce His message of freedom to all humanity. Only in Him can we be free: free from sin, from evil, from hatred in our hearts, free to love and welcome the Lord and our brothers and sisters. A true freedom already on earth, which through care for the real man awakens in every heart the hope of salvation.”

The following is the Pope’s address to those present:

Dear brothers and sisters:

Good morning and thank you very much for being here. The canonization of Bishop Óscar Romero, a distinguished pastor of the American continent, allows me to meet with all of you who have come to Rome to venerate him and, at the same time, to express your attachment and closeness to the Successor of Peter.

I greet in first of all my brothers in the Episcopate, the bishops of El Salvador, who have come to Rome accompanied by their priests and faithful. Saint Óscar Romero knew how to incarnate with perfection the image of the good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep. Therefore, and even more so since his canonization, you can find in him an “example and a stimulus” in the ministry entrusted to you. An example of predilection for those most in need of God’s mercy and a stimulus to witness Christ’s love and care for the Church, knowing how to coordinate the action of each one of her members and collaborating with the other particular Churches with collegial affection. May the Saint Bishop Romero help you to be for all signs of that unity in the plurality that characterizes the holy People of God.

I also greet with special affection the many priests and men and women religious present here. You, who feel called to live a Christian commitment inspired by the style of the new saint, become worthy of his teachings, being above all “servants of the priestly people”, in the vocation to which Jesus, the only and eternal priest, has called. Saint Óscar Romero saw the priest placed in the middle of two great abysses: that of the infinite mercy of God and that of the infinite misery of men (see Homily during the priestly ordination, December 10, 1977). Dear brothers, work tirelessly to give channel to that infinite longing of God to forgive men who repent of their misery, and to open the hearts of their brothers to the tenderness of God’s love, also through the prophetic denunciation of the evils of the world.

I would also like to extend a cordial greeting to the numerous pilgrims who have come to Rome to participate in this canonization, from El Salvador and other Latin American countries. The message of Saint Óscar Romero is addressed to all without exception. He repeated strongly that every Catholic must be a martyr, because martyr means witness, that is, a witness of God’s message to men (see Homily on the First Sunday of Advent, 27 November 1977). God wants to be present in our lives, and calls us to announce His message of freedom to all humanity. Only in Him can we be free: free from sin, from evil, from hatred in our hearts, free to love and welcome the Lord and our brothers and sisters. A true freedom already on earth, which through care for the real man awakens in every heart the hope of salvation.

We are well aware that this is not easy, which is why we need the support of prayer. We need to be united with God and in communion with the Church. Saint Óscar tells us that without God, and without the ministry of the Church, this is not possible. On one occasion, he referred to confirmation as to the “sacrament of martyrs” (Homily, 5 December 1977). And without “that force of the Holy Spirit, which the early Christians received from their bishops, from the Pope … they would not have stood the test of persecution; they would not have died for Christ” (ibid.).

Let us bring to our prayer these prophetic words, asking God for His strength in the daily struggle so that, if necessary, “we too are willing to give our lives for Christ” (ibid.).

From here I send my greeting to all the Holy People of God who are on pilgrimage in El Salvador and who are full of joy today at seeing one of their children in the honour of the altars. Its people have a living faith expressed in different forms of popular religiosity and that shapes their social and family life. However, the difficulties and the scourge of division and war have not been lacking; violence has been felt strongly in its recent history. A number of Salvadorans have had to leave their land looking for a better future. The memory of Saint Óscar Romero is an exceptional opportunity to send a message of peace and reconciliation to all the peoples of Latin America.

Together with all of you, joining with your joy, I ask Mary, Queen of Peace, to take tender care of El Salvador, and our Lord to bless His people with the caress of His mercy. And, please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you.

Pope Francis canonizes Paul VI, Oscar Romero and 5 others today in Rome

Photo by ZENIT

Pope Francis Canonizes Paul VI, Oscar Romero and 5 Other Saints

‘All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all’

October 14, 2018 11:49Deborah Castellano LubovEschatology, Saints and Blesseds

Pope Francis has canonized Pope Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero and five other saints.

This morning in St. Peter’s Square, before a crowd of about 70,000 people, Pope Francis presided over Holy Mass for the canonization of the saints while the Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment is underway in the Vatican, Oct. 3-28, 2018.

He also proclaimed canonized saints Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus, and Nunzio Sulprizio.

Pope Francis began recalling that today’s second reading tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two- edged sword (Heb 4:12).

“It really is: God’s word is not merely a set of truths or an edifying spiritual account; no – it is a living word that touches our lives, that transforms our lives. There, Jesus in person, the living Word of God, speaks to our hearts.”

The Gospel, he continued, invites us to an encounter with the Lord, after the example of the “man” who “ran up to him” (cf. Mk 10:17). The Pope pointed out that we can recognize ourselves in that man, as he asks Jesus how “to inherit eternal life” (v. 17).

“He is seeking life without end, life in its fullness: who of us would not want this? Yet we notice that he asks for it as an inheritance, as a good to be obtained, to be won by his own efforts. In fact, in order to possess this good, he has observed the commandments from his youth and to achieve this he is prepared to follow others; and so he asks: “What must I do to have eternal life?”

Jesus’ answer catches him off guard, the Pope said, reminding Jesus told him:“Sell what you have and give to the poor…and come, follow me” (v. 21). To you, too, the Pope noted, Jesus says: “Come, follow me!”

Seek Him Every Day, God as Meaning of Your Life

“Follow me: do not walk behind Jesus only when you want to, but seek him out every day; do not be content to keep the commandments, to give a little alms and say a few prayers: find in Him the God who always loves you; seek in Jesus the God who is the meaning of your life, the God who gives you the strength to give of yourself.”

“We cannot truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things. Because if our hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who will become just one thing among the others.” The Pope noted that where money is at the center, there is no room for God nor for man.

Cannot Give Jesus Crumbs, When He Gives Himself as Our Living Bread

“Jesus is radical,” Francis said, noting: “He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart. Even today he gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange?”

The Pope said we cannot respond to Him, who made Himself our servant even going to the Cross for us, only by observing some of the Commandments.

“Jesus is not content with a “percentage of love”: we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty percent. It is either all or nothing.”

Our heart, the Pope went on to observe, is like a magnet: it lets itself be attracted by love, but it can cling to one master only and it must choose: either it will love God or it will love the world’s treasure; either it will live for love or it will live for itself (cf. Mk 8:35).

“Let us ask ourselves where we are in our story of love with God. Do we content ourselves with a few commandments or do we follow Jesus as lovers, really prepared to leave behind something for him? Jesus asks each of us and all of us as the Church journeying forward: are we a Church that only preaches good commandments or a Church that is a spouse, that launches herself forward in love for her Lord? Do we truly follow him or do we revert to the ways of the world, like that man in the Gospel?”

“In a word, is Jesus enough for us or do we look for many worldly securities? Let us ask for the grace always to leave things behind for love of the Lord: to leave behind wealth and yearning for status and power, structures that are no longer adequate for proclaiming the Gospel, those weights that slow down our mission, the strings that tie us to the world. Without a leap forward in love, our life and our Church become sick from “complacency and self-indulgence” (Evangelii Gaudium, 95): we find joy in some fleeting pleasure, we close ourselves off in useless gossip, we settle into the monotony of a Christian life without momentum, where a little narcissism covers over the sadness of remaining unfulfilled.”

The Pope stressed the necessity for us to give our whole hearts.

“Sadness is the proof of unfulfilled love, the sign of a lukewarm heart. On the other hand, a heart unburdened by possessions, that freely loves the Lord, always spreads joy, that joy for which there is so much need today.”

Francis recalled that Pope Saint Paul VI wrote: “It is indeed in the midst of their distress that our fellow men need to know joy, to hear its song” (Gaudete in Domino, I).

“Today Jesus invites us to return to the source of joy, which is the encounter with him, the courageous choice to risk everything to follow him, the satisfaction of leaving something behind in order to embrace his way. The saints have travelled this path.”

On Paul VI

St. Paul VI, like St. Paul, Francis observed, “spent his life for Christ’s Gospel, crossing new boundaries and becoming its witness in proclamation and in dialogue, a prophet of a Church turned outwards, looking to those far away and taking care of the poor.”

“Even in the midst of tiredness and misunderstanding, Paul VI bore witness in a passionate way to the beauty and the joy of following Christ totally. Today he still urges us, together with the Council whose wise helmsman he was, to live our common vocation: the universal call to holiness.”

“Not to half measures, but to holiness,” the Pope reminded.

“It is wonderful that together with him and the other new saints today, there is Archbishop Romero, who left the security of the world, even his own safety, in order to give his life according to the Gospel, close to the poor and to his people, with a heart drawn to Jesus and his brothers and sisters.”

Pope Francis said we can say the same about Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus, and “our young boy” from Naples, Nunzio Sulprizio.

Pope Francis concluded, saying: “All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all.”

***

On ZENIT’s Web page:

Full Text: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-homily-at-canonization-of-paul-vi-oscar-romero-5-other-blesseds/

Since he can't be at tomorrow's canonization the Pope visits the Pope Emeritus

Francis and Benedict in 2017

Pope Francis Visits Pope Emeritus on eve of Canonization of Paul VI

Benedict XVI will not Attend Ceremony

October 13, 2018 22:16Rosa Die AlcoleaFrancis

Pope Francis went to the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery on October 13, 2018, to visit the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, on the eve of the Canonization of the Blessed Paul VI, Oscar Romero, Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Katharina Kasper, Nazaria Ignacia of Saint Teresa of Jesus and Nunzio Sulprizio.

The visit was reported the Vatican Press Office.

Benedict XVI will not be able to be present at the canonization ceremony, due to his advanced age and “weakness”, it was reported October 11, 2018, by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu.

Benedict XVI was created a cardinal by Paul VI in his last Consistory on June 27, 1977, 13 months before his death.

On October 14th when they canonize Pope Paul VI, there will be six others, including Abp. Oscar Romero

Paul VI, Archbishop Romero Among Those to be Canonized October 14, 2018

Also Nunzio Sulprizio, a Young Italian Layperson

October 02, 2018 17:57ZENIT StaffCatholic Church

The Vatican announced October 2, 2018, that on Sunday, October 14, 2018, at 10:15 a.m. the Mass for canonization of seven blessed will be held in the Vatican Basilica. Those being canonized are:

Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini), Supreme Pontiff;

Oscar Arnulfo Romero Galdámez, archbishop of San Salvador, martyr;

Francesco Spinelli, diocesan priest, founder of the Institute of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Holy Sacrament;

Vincenzo Romano, diocesan priest;

Maria Katharina Kasper, virgin, founder of the Institute of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ;

Nazaria Ignacia de Santa Teresa de Jesús (née: Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa), founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Crusaders of the Church;

Nunzio Sulprizio, a young Italian layperson.

Along with Blessed Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI, there are 5 more to be canonized in October

Pope adds teen to list of saints to be declared during synod on youth

• Catholic News Service
  Jul 19, 2018
  CONTRIBUTOR

Pope Francis leads an ordinary public consistory for the conclusion of sainthood causes at the Vatican July 19. The pope announced he would canonize seven new saints Oct. 14. Among those to be canonized are Blessed Paul VI, Blessed Oscar Romero and Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio, an Italian teenager. (Credit: CNS photo/Vatican Media.)

ROME - Pope Francis added an Italian teenager to the list of people he will formally recognize as saints Oct. 14 during the month-long meeting of the world Synod of Bishops on young people.

During an “ordinary public consistory” July 19, Francis announced he would declare Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio a saint the same day he will canonize Blesseds Oscar Romero, Paul VI and four others. An ordinary public consistory is a meeting of the pope, cardinals and promoters of sainthood causes that formally ends the sainthood process.

Sulprizio was born April 13, 1817, in the Abruzzo region near Pescara. Both of his parents died when he was an infant and his maternal grandmother, who raised him, died when he was nine.

An uncle took him under his guardianship and had the young boy work for him in his blacksmith shop. However, the work was too strenuous for a boy his age and he developed a problem in his leg, which became gangrenous.

A military colonel took care of Sulprizio, who was eventually hospitalized in Naples. The young teen faced tremendous pain with patience and serenity and offered up his sufferings to God.

He died in Naples in 1836 at the age of 19. He was declared blessed in 1963 by Blessed Paul VI, who will be canonized together with the teen.

During the ceremony, Paul had said, “Nunzio Sulprizio will tell you that the period of youth should not be considered the age of free passions, of inevitable falls, of invincible crises, of decadent pessimism, of harmful selfishness. Rather, he will rather tell you how being young is a grace.”

Together with Blesseds Paul and Romero, Sulprizio will be canonized along with: Father Francesco Spinelli of Italy, founder of the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament; Father Vincenzo Romano, who worked with the poor of Naples, Italy, until his death in 1831; Mother Catherine Kasper, the German founder of the religious congregation, the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ; and Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa, the Spanish founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Crusaders of the Church.

The Oct. 14 date for the canonizations had already been announced during an ordinary public consistory in mid-May.

Canonization date now set for Paul VI and Oscar Romero, praise be to God

Pope to canonize Paul VI, Oscar Romero in Rome Oct. 14

• In Vatican
• Inés San Martín
  May 19, 2018
  VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

Blessed Paul VI, pictured in 1969, and Blessed Oscar Romero, pictured in 1979. (Credit: CNS photos.)

ROME – Pope Francis has chosen the date for the ceremony that will officially see the Catholic Church recognizing the sainthood of Pope Paul VI and Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was martyred as he was celebrating Mass: They will be canonized on Oct. 14. The highly anticipated

ROME - Pope Francis has chosen the date for the ceremony that will officially see the Catholic Church recognizing the sainthood of Pope Paul VI and Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was martyred as he was celebrating Mass: They will be canonized on Oct. 14.
The highly anticipated announcement was made on Saturday, during an ordinary public consistory, meaning a meeting of the pope, cardinals and the promoters of sainthood causes.
The October ceremony, to be celebrated by Pope Francis, will be in Rome, during the Synod of Bishops on the youth that will take place from October 3 to 28, 2018.
The sainthood causes of four other people - two Italian priests and two women founders of religious orders, one German and one Spanish, were also approved on Saturday.
Pope Paul VI, a pope of dialogue
Born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, in Sept. 26 September 1897, Pope Paul VI led the Catholic Church from 1963 until his death on August 6, 1978.
Succeeding John XXIII, Paul VI continued the Second Vatican Council - which he closed in 1965 - implementing its numerous reforms.
He wanted a Church that was in dialogue with the modern world. He treated the theme of dialogue at great length in his encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, released on Aug. 6, 1964, exactly 14 years before his death. In it, he wrote he felt a “vocation” to dialogue between the Church and the world.
Faced with the issue of whether to change the Church’s longstanding opposition to artificial birth control, Paul VI penned his landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, delivering a strong “no” to change and reaffirming the Church’s teaching on contraception. Even though his papacy lasted for another 10 years, this would remain his last encyclical.
Once described by Pope Benedict XVI as “superhuman,” Paul VI governed the church in the turbulent post-conciliar phase. In the words of Francis, he was a man who “knew how to witness, in difficult years, to the faith in Jesus Christ.”
The future saint was also a consummate Vatican insider, having worked in the Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1945, and he was one of the closest aides and advisors to Pope Pius XII.
Pope Francis has spoken repeatedly about his predecessor, and earlier this year he confirmed that Paul VI would be made a saint before 2018 was over.

Even though Humanae Vitae has garnered much of the discussion over the legacy of his predecessor, for Francis there’s another document that is “the greatest pastoral document written to date” - Paul VI’s 1975 exhortation on evangelization, Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Proclaiming the Gospel).
In Evangelii Nuntiandi, Paul VI wrote that the Church itself “has a constant need of being evangelized,” and that people today listen “more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
“The world calls for, and expects from us, simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It risks being vain and sterile,” Paul wrote.
Paul will become the third pope that Francis has made a saint since his election five years ago. The others are John XXIII, who died in 1963, and John Paul II, who died in 2005. Both were canonized together in 2014.
Romero, El Salvador’s first saint
Oscar Romero, who will become the first Salvadorian saint, was born on August 15, 1917. He was gunned down during Mass in a hospital chapel March 24, 1980, a day after telling an army made up largely of peasants that they were killing their own people.
“No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God,” he said.
He was shot through the heart by gunmen linked to a right-wing death squad while celebrating Mass, after saying, “one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and those who fend off danger will lose their lives.”
Romero was outspoken against military oppression during his country’s bloody civil war in the 1980s, and also of the role the United States played in it.
In a letter he sent to U.S. president Jimmy Carter in February of 1980, he urged America not to send military aid to El Salvador: “You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people.”
He’s death is considered by the Catholic Church to have been in “odium fidei,” meaning in hatred of the faith.
Romero was beatified in San Salvador on May 23, 2015, in a ceremony that drew an estimated 250,000, believed to have been the largest religious gathering ever held in Central America.
RELATED: Vast crowd sees Romero beatified as martyr and hero to the poor
When the recognition of martyrdom for Romero was announced in Rome in 2015, Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the Vatican official who has championed Romero’s cause for canonization, said that sainthood for the El Salvadoran prelate wouldn’t have been possible without emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who, he said, gave the green light to restart the process in December 2012.
Prior to that, Romero’s cause had been blocked for the better part of three decades, in part because some observers felt he was killed less for religious reasons than for his politics.
Benedict XVI was an “extraordinary interlocutor” for the cause, even as a cardinal, Paglia said, insisting on the fact that “robust objections require a robust response.”
RELATED: Salvadoran newspaper describes miracle for Blessed Romero cause
The Salvadoran prelate is conventionally seen as a champion of Liberation Theology, which was partially condemned by the Vatican in the 1980s for its tendency to mix Marxist social analysis and concepts such as “class struggle” with religious commitments.
Yet Peruvian Theologian Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, widely considered the founding father of Liberation Theology, has repeatedly said that Romero didn’t belong to the movement.
Speaking to Crux in San Salvador ahead of Romero’s beatification back in 2015, he said the martyr didn’t adhere to any particular theological path, to one school or the other.
Romero was not “cloistered or encapsulated in only one current,” Gutiérrez said.
If anything, Gutiérrez said, Romero was a traditional person, “but in the good sense: Not exactly conservative, but a very pious person.”
Among the lesser-known facts of Romero is his close relationship with the personal prelature Opus Dei, though for decades they remained quiet about the connection.
RELATED: Five things you (perhaps) don’t know about Archbishop Oscar Romero
For almost 15 years Romero had a spiritual director/confessor from Opus Dei - first Father Juan Aznar and later Father Fernando Saenz, who would replace Romero as Archbishop of San Salvador after his death.
Romero went to the beach with a group of Opus Dei friends on the morning of the day he was killed; and in 1975, after the death of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, Romero sent a letter to Paul VI asking the pope to jumpstart his canonization process.
His funeral took place at the cathedral six days after he was murdered. An estimated 200,000 people attended the service, which was interrupted by gunfire that left between 30 to 50 people dead. His murderers remain unpunished.
RELATED: Cardinal and longtime friend says Romero will be the ‘saint of four popes’
According to Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez, during the 2007 assembly of the conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, a priest asked then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, today Pope Francis, what he thought about Romero.
Bergoglio reportedly said that “to me [Romero] is a saint and a martyr … If I were pope, I would have already canonized him.”
He will do so in October 14.

Sometime in October look for the canonizations of Bishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI

Date set for final approval of canonization of Blesseds Paul VI, Romero

• In Catholic News Service, Vatican
• Carol Glatz
  May 3, 2018
  CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

Blessed Paul VI is pictured with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in this undated photo. The Vatican announced that final approval would be given May 19 for the canonizations of Blesseds Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero and four others. (Credit: CNS.)

The Vatican announced that final approval would be given May 19 for the canonizations of Blesseds Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero and four others.

ROME - The Vatican announced that final approval would be given May 19 for the canonizations of Blesseds Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero and four others.
Pope Francis already cleared the way for their canonizations earlier this year with the publication of decrees recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of each one of the blesseds.
The Vatican said May 3 that an “ordinary public consistory” - a meeting of the pope with cardinals resident in Rome and invited bishops and other dignitaries - would be held May 19 to finalize the approval of six canonizations. This meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes formally ends the process of approving a new saint.
The dates and locations for the canonization ceremonies are expected to be announced shortly after the consistory.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, has said that Blessed Paul’s canonization will take place at the end of the Synod of Bishops on youth and discernment, scheduled for Oct. 3-28.
The other men and women to be canonized include: Father Francesco Spinelli of Italy, founder of the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament; Father Vincenzo Romano, who worked with the poor of Naples, Italy, until his death in 1831; Mother Catherine Kasper, the German founder of the religious congregation, the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ; and Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa, the Spanish founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Crusaders of the Church.