VATICAN: The fast-tracking to sainthood of some by the Vatican has been criticised by the Irish El Salvador Support Committee. Its chairman, Mr Brendan Butler, has asked, "what is the problem with people of heroic sanctity like Archbishop \ Romero, the martyred bishop of El Salvador , the ebullient Pope John XXXIII, and the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy May, to name but a few? Were they considered 'dangerous' role models because they did not fit into the established mode of holiness?" he wonders.
In his struggle to be the voice of the dispossessed of El Salvador and dedication to the Gospel, Archbishop Romero was "shunned by his fellow bishops and the then Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Gerada, [later Papal Nuncio to Ireland]", he said.
When the Archbishop first visited Rome, while Paul VI was , Pope, he was well received. However, under Pope John Paul II he was recalled three times to Rome to answer charges levelled against him by the Carter administration [in the US\], one of which read "that he was a little too far over to the left".
Archbishop Romero recalled in his diary how Pope John Paul admonished him, but that he stood his ground. He produced report after report on the violations of human rights in El Salvador but the Pope declined to read them, he said.
Shortly after that interview with the Pope, Archbishop Romero was murdered while celebrating Mass. "If you travel to El Salvador and visit Romero's tomb, the entire area round about is filled with discarded crutches, walking sticks and thousand of letters of thanks addressed to him. Indeed, throughout El Salvador and Latin America he is revered as 'Saint Romero of the Americas'. No one believed that the Kingdom of God is only the reserve of the officially sanctioned few," he said.