VATICAN CITY: Slain Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero and pope Paul VI, Catholic giants who sparked controversy during their lifetimes, joined the church’s highest rank on Sunday with an elevation to sainthood.
Pope Francis wore a blood-stained rope belt which belonged to Romero, who was murdered at the altar, as he led the ceremony in front of tens of thousands of pilgrims from across the world.
The pontiff also used a chalice and pastoral staff belonging to Paul VI, in a canonisation being seen as a reminder of Francis’s call for “a poor church for the poor”.
Both men have been hailed by Pope Francis for their courage in turbulent times and their dedication to social justice and the downtrodden.
Romero stood up for peasant rights in the face of a right-wing backlash which painted him as a radical supporter of “liberation” theology in his small, impoverished central American nation.
On March 24, 1980, the man dubbed the “voice of those without voice” was shot in the heart, killed by a single bullet as he prepared communion. His killing came at the start of a bloody civil war which claimed some 75,000 lives.
For a long time, efforts to recognise Romero met with heavy opposition from conservative Catholics and the Salvadoran right, who saw veiled Marxism in his sermons.
But Pope Francis — the first Latin American pope — beatified Romero as a “martyr” in 2015, to popular acclaim.
Paul VI — who encouraged Romero in his struggle — was the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to attempt to reform the Vatican’s powerful and unruly Curia, the church’s governing body. It was a challenge Francis also took on.
He was also famously the first to reject the papal trappings of luxury, setting aside the traditional tiara — a jewel-encrusted, three-tiered, conical crown — shortly after his election in 1963 and donating its value to the poor. It was a gesture echoed by Pope Francis, who renounced the papal apartment and gold cross.
The softly-spoken Giovanni Battista Montini was elected pope in 1963 in a difficult period for the church, which lost many believers as populist rebellions swept across the West.
He completed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and was the first pilgrim pope, crossing continents on his trips to meet the faithful.
He is most famous for reaffirming the church’s ban on contraception — despite the fact that his own advisory commission voted overwhelmingly to lift the prohibition.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018
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