A small portion of justice
has come for Oscar Romero
and those who look to him as a model for Christian living. It only took
thirty-five years, but the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints finally
recognized what almost every rational Catholic in the world – except, of
course, for some powerful church people still obsessed with the
bogeyman of Marxism – has already known for a very long known: Romero
was a
martyr for the faith .
What else could he have been? He was gunned down on March 24, 1980, at
the very moment he was offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If
that’s not a clear-cut “do not pass Go, do not collect $200, but be
raised immediately to the Glory of the Altars” martyrdom, then what is?
This was a no-brainer. But it took the common sense of Pope Francis to
shake up the folks at the Congregation for Saints and do what they
should have done decades ago – stop their resistance to Romero’s
sainthood cause. Don’t be surprised when the Latin American pope waives
the “required miracle” needed for Romero’s canonization (which he will
do) and, within the next couple of years, personally declares him a
saint. In one sense, the hesitancy of the Vatican’s saint-making office
has been inconsequential to the Salvadoran people and millions of others
all over the world who have always regarded the martyred archbishop a
saint. He has been an illuminating inspiration for those thirsting for
peace and justice in our world – and in our church. Catholics believe in
the communion of saints and most believers have favorite “heroes of the
faith” from among the holy men and women who have gone before us. But
the official saint-making machine in Rome strains credibility when it
deals, as it has up to now, with clear-cut cases like Oscar Romero’s.
One can only wonder how many other models of Christian discipleship this
much-politicized Vatican department has failed to offer to the people
of God.
****
Timing, they say, is everything. And so it was a bit of bad luck that
approval of Oscar Romero’s beatification was announced on Tuesday – bad
luck, that is, for a courageous group of women religious engaged in the
fight against modern-day slavery. This big news about Romero
understandably stole the spotlight from the sisters who, just an hour
earlier, had concluded a very moving press conference on an important
anti-human trafficking initiative. Representatives of Talitha Kum, the
International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking in
Persons, passionately spoke of their work at the Tuesday presser as part
of an effort to raise consciousness and garner support for the First
World Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking. The event
is to be observed throughout the church this Sunday. The date was
specifically chosen to coincide with the annual (February 8) Feast of
St. Josephine Bakhita, a 20th century Sudanese slave who was brought to
Italy, then gained her freedom and joined Canossian Daughters of
Charity. Several religious sisters who work to free women from powerful
prostitution and forced-labor networks spoke with great poignancy of the
daunting uphill battle they face. “In order to understand what human
trafficking is, it is necessary to meet victims, to listen to them, look
at them in the eyes, embrace them,” said Sister Valeria Gandini. The
Comboni Missionary has been working with victims the past five years in
the Sicilian capital, Palermo. She and the other sisters said much more
must be done to help the some 21 million people worldwide who are
trafficking victims. Pope Francis has been a huge promoter of efforts to
fight this “crime against humanity,” as he has called it. And the heads
of three Vatican offices – Cardinals Peter Turkson (Justice &
Peace), João Bráz de Aviz (Religious Orders) and Antonio Maria Vegliò
(Migrants & Itinerants) – were at the briefing to “add institutional
weight” to the sisters’ initiative. Find more information on the
Day of Prayer here.
****
Italy (certainly Rome) and the Catholic Church are joined at the hip
in many and various ways. One cannot fully understand the ethos and the
dynamics that are at work in the Vatican and at the highest levels of
the hierarchy without at least some familiarity with the
bel paese,
its people and what makes them tick. A couple of events this past week
in Rome again reinforced the point. One of the them, a press conference
to launch this week’s plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for
Culture (on women), was a sad reminder that officials in the Vatican
sometimes forget there’s a church that exists far beyond Italy – indeed,
beyond Rome’s ring-road! Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the council’s
president, is considered one of the bright lights in the Roman Curia.
But the Milanese scripture scholar, who enjoys fame as a widely read man
of culture, had fifteen women – fourteen of them Italians! – prepare
the working document for the council’s plenary. And yet Italy is hardly
the paragon of enlightened thinking on the role of women in church and
society. The second event was the election last Saturday of the latest
president of Italy, the figure who represents national unity and
guarantees that the country’s politics remain faithful to the
constitution. The country’s bloated parliament (three hundred and
fifteen senators and six hundred and thirty representatives) and
regional government officials (over one thousand electors) chose Sergio
Mattarella, a life-long Catholic politician who has been a judge on
Italy’s Constitutional Court since 2011. In some ways, the process of
his election and the reaction afterwards were similar to the election of
a pope. This was especially seen in the mythmaking that began in
earnest as soon as it became clear he would be the new president. Mr.
Mattarella comes from the left wing of the old Christian Democrat Party,
and is brother was killed by mobsters in his native Sicily. A quiet,
unassuming party apparatchik, he is now being lionized as he assumes his
new and important role. But that happens to newly elected popes, too.
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