Tyburn Lecture: Blessed Oscar Romero, a guiding light for our times

Bl Oscar Romero

Julian Filochowski, a founder trustee and chair of the Archbishop Oscar Romero Trust, will on Tuesday May 1 deliver the 16th Tyburn Lecture at Tyburn Convent, the mother house of the Tyburn Nuns, near Marble Arch, London.

The event will be held less than two months after Pope Francis formally signed the decree that recognised the miracle required for the canonisation of Óscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who was shot during Mass in 1980 after he publicly criticised the oppression of the poor by the military of El Salvador.

Mr Filochowski said: "I will speak about Archbishop Óscar Romero as a martyr in odium fidei and a model for the Church today. The title could be 'Blessed Óscar Romero, bishop and martyr, a guiding light for our times'."

Pope Francis, who presided over the beatification of Archbishop Romero on May 23 2015, has described the Latin American prelate as "a zealous bishop who ... converted himself in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd".

Cardinal Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Causes of Saints, has also explained that the murder of Romero was in hatred for the Catholic faith because his concern for the poor "was not ideological but evangelical", meaning that the Catholic Church considers him to be a martyr.

No-one has been prosecuted for the killing of Archbishop Romero but it is widely believed he was murdered by one of the right-wing death squads terrorising the poor of his country at that time.

His death came at the start of a 12-year civil war that claimed an estimated 75,000 lives in the Central American country.
His cause for canonisation opened in 1993 and in subsequent year Pope St John Paul II prayed before his tomb and Pope Benedict XVI expressed the view that his death was "a witness of faith".

For further information: contact Tyburn Convent on either 0207 723 7262 email: info@tyburnconvent.org.uk

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