Martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI are among seven people canonised as saints by Pope Francis on the weekend.
Archbishop Romero was gunned down by a death squad while celebrating Mass in 1980 after denouncing military oppression at the start of El Salvador’s civil which ran until 1992 and claimed an estimated 75,000 lives. Pope Paul VI, who was pontiff between 1963 and 1978, presided over the Catholic Church during a period of significant reforms including the final sessions of the Second Vatican Council.
In a Mass held in St Peter’s Square on Sunday before tens of thousands of people, Pope Francis canonised both men as saints along with five others.
“All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without being lukewarm, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything,” he reportedly said. “May the Lord help us to imitate their example.”
The Pope used a chalice and pastoral cross during the ceremony which were favourites of Pope Paul VIs and wore a blood-stained rope belt which had been worn by Archbishop Romero when he was shot dead.
The five others canonised on Sunday included Italian priests Francesco Spinelli and Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper – the German founder of the Institute of the Poor Servants of Jesus Christ, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus, founder of the Congregation of the Misioneras Cruzadas de la Iglesia in Bolivia, and a young Italian orphan, Nuncio Sulprizio, who died at just the age of just 19 from bone tuberculosis in 1836 and who knew, according to Pope Francis, “how to love Jesus with his whole self”.
