What would Oscar Romero say today about El Salvador?

(RNS) Two years ago I was in El Salvador and asked a fellow Jesuit priest if he thought that Archbishop Oscar Romero — famously slain while celebrating Mass in 1980 — would ever be beatified. The Salvadoran Jesuit’s answer: only when all of the people who loved Romero and all of the people who hated him were dead.

Fortunately, that prediction turned out to be grossly off the mark, as Pope Francis will beatify Oscar Romero on Saturday (May 23), putting him one step shy of formal sainthood.

At the height of El Salvador’s civil war, Romero was a lightning rod with enemies. One of the most prominent Salvadorans to call out the country’s government and military leaders to end their bloody and oppressive human rights violations, he was also an outspoken advocate for the poor.