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Martyr’s Witness On Tuesday 3rd February 2015, Pope Francis officially declared that Archbishop Óscar Romero had been martyred - that is, killed as a result of “hatred of the faith” (odium fidei). This has opened up the path to his beatification (in 2015) by removing the need for an authenticated miracle. Many have speculated that the first pope from Latin America was able to ‘unblock’ a process which had stalled; however, it is clear that his immediate predecessor was also sympathetic. In early 2007, Pope Benedict XVI travelled to Latin America for the first time as pope, to open the Fifth General Assembly of the Council of Bishops of Latin America (CELAM) at Aparecida in Brazil. On the aeroplane he gave an extended interview during which he reflected on past and future directions in liberation theology. He also gave the following reply to a question about moves to beatify the Servant of God1 Óscar Romero, fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, who was shot while saying Mass on 24th March 1980: “Archbishop Romero was certainly an important witness of the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace and against the dictatorship, and was killed while celebrating Mass. Consequently, his death was truly ‘credible’, a witness of faith.”2
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