Cuban Cardinal, First Arrived in Salvador for Romero’s Beatification

Cardinal Jaime Ortega, was the first to arrive in El Salvador for the beatification of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

San Salvador’s Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas and nuncio Leon Kalenga welcomed Ortega, who will be among other cardinals at the altar where the beatification ceremony will be held.

According to Monsignor Rafael Urrutia, promoter of the Romero’s beatification process, the ceremony will be attended by Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes for the Saints who will lead the ceremony, prefect from Panama Jose Luis Lacunza, from Nicaragua Leopoldo Jose Brenes and from Honduras Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga.

The ceremony of beatification of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who was assassinated while he was preaching a sermon, will take place next Saturday.

Romero represented a disruptive figure for the oligarchy, the Army, the paramilitary and all those riding roughshod over the rights of the poor and the Salvadoran people in general.

On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot by a sniper and the bullet went through his heart, so he died immediately.

The United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador found former major Roberto d’Aubuisson responsible for Romero’s assassination.