GOOD AND LONG OVERDUE NEWS INDEED!

It’s official!

Blessed Paul VI will be declared a Saint in late October at the end of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, has announced.

After mentioning the late Pope in a speech to the International Catholic Migration Commission March 6, Cardinal Parolin confirmed that the canonization will take place at the end of the October Synod. 

The timing of his canonization is fitting especially since it was Pope Paul VI who revived the ancient custom of synodal gatherings as part of the reforms instituted as a result of Vatican Council II.

As I shared on this blogsite, the Congregation for Saints’ Causes voted on February 6th to recognize as a miracle the healing of an unborn baby and helping her reach full term. The baby’s mother, who was told she had a very high risk of miscarrying the baby, had prayed for Blessed Paul’s intercession a few days after his beatification by Pope Francis in 2014.

Blessed Paul, who was born Giovanni Battista Montini, served as Supreme Pontiff from 1963 to 1978.

And as I share the joy of this announcement, I am delighted to be able to celebrate the fact that Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, murdered by a right-wing death squad in 1980 at the start of the country's civil war, finally will be canonized.

Archbishop Romero, who had denounced a crackdown on leftist opponents of the country's military government, was killed while celebrating Mass in March 1980. Vatican theologians declared him a “martyr", because he was killed in odium fidei — "in hatred of the faith."

The Archbishop’s path to sainthood shamefully has been a long one.  His process was intentionally stalled during the Pontificate of Pope Saint John Paul II who very publicly and repeated took exception to the liberation theology movement which had arisen in Latin America during the 1960s.

However, in 2014, Pope Francis said Romero's case for sainthood had been "unlocked" after being put on hold by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The delay is over and the honor and respect due him on account of his heroic witness to the Faith can now be recognized and celebrated universally by the Church.