No date yet for Blessed Romero canonisation, archbishop confirms

No date yet for Blessed Romero canonisation, archbishop confirms canonisations crowds

While documentation regarding an alleged miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Oscar Romero is being studied at the Vatican, there is no date scheduled for his canonisation, the archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, said.

“I must say, in all sincerity, that there is no date. And we understand it well because it involves a process. Blessed Romero’s cause is at a decisive phase that is necessary for his canonisation,” Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas said on March 23 during a memorial Mass for Blessed Romero in Rome.

Archbishop Escobar, along with the other bishops of El Salvador were making their ad limina visits to Rome and the Vatican and anticipated the 37th anniversary of Blessed Romero’s death with Mass at Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Blessed Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass in the chapel of a local hospital one day after calling on the government to end its violation of human rights against the population.

During his homily, Archbishop Escobar thanked Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the official promoter of Blessed Romero’s sainthood cause, for his work throughout canonical process.

The alleged miracle involves a pregnant woman in El Salvador who was in in danger of dying, Archbishop Paglia said. “Several friends of this family prayed to Blessed Oscar Romero. And in a short time, the baby was born and the mother is well.”

Archbishop Paglia said that officials at the Congregation for Saints’ Causes had opened the documentation concerning the alleged miracle.