The Weekender: Martyrs of El Salvador

“The Weekender” is our feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas.

On March 23rd the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified during an official ceremony attended by some 260,000 people in San Salvador. The outspoken human rights defender was murdered in March 1980 while officiating mass at a military hospital. Sadly, Romero wasn’t the only religious figure killed on the cusp of El Salvador’s civil war.

Nearly six months after Romero’s death four U.S. churchwomen – nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan – were brutally raped, tortured and murdered by National Guard soldiers allegedly on orders from their superiors. Much like the aftermath of the death of Romero, the killed women were slandered and labeled as communist sympathizers and revolutionaries.  They also shared another unfortunate parallel in that the masterminds behind their deaths have yet to be brought to justice.  Yet while a strong campaign has advocated sainthood for Romero no such push for canonization is behind the murdered nuns and lay worker. National Catholic Reporter columnist Heidi Schlumpf wrote last February that this should not be the case:

The Catholic Church's process for declaring someone is a saint can be costly and requires support from an organized group, most often a religious order -- which explains why so many founders and foundresses have been canonized over the centuries. It also explains why the church has so few lay saints.
 

But the lack of an official stamp of sainthood has not stopped Catholics from honoring the four churchwomen of El Salvador. Books have been written about them, those involved in justice work pray for their intercession, and young Catholics already choose their names as their confirmation names.

Below the page break is a November 2014 video from The New York Times’ Retro Report series that looked at the horrible murderers of Ford, Clarke, Kazel and Donovan. The analysis provides more details behind their deaths, the role played by the U.S. government to defend the Salvadoran military and the cover-up by officials from the Central American country.

(Note: the video may be Not Safe for Work due to several strong scenes of victims of violence).

Daily Headlines: May 18, 2015

* Venezuela: Venezuela’s main opposition coalition held legislative primaries with the hope that they can take advantage of growing discontent against the government and capture the National Assembly later this year.

* Cuba: Several Caribbean countries are being hit with very dry weather conditions including Cuba where more than 1 million people are reportedly affected by “an intense drought.”

* Latin America: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is expected to announce a series of major investment projects in Latin America during his official visit to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile this week.

* Vatican: Argentine-born Pope Francis canonized two Arab nuns from Palestine days after the Vatican formally recognized the state of Palestine.
 
YouTube Source – Al Jazeera English

Online Sources – Miami Herald, Fox News Latino, USA TODAY, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: May 4, 2015

* Cuba: The “Buena Vista Social Club”, the critically acclaimed 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on Cuban music, will have a sequel that has reportedly gone into production.

* South America: The Colombian Supreme Court requested an investigation of ex-president Alvaro Uribe over his suspected role in the wiretapping of political opponents, while Brazilian prosecutors opened a preliminary corruption probe against former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

* Puerto Rico: Using medical marijuana in Puerto Rico is now legal following a “surprise” executive order signed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla yesterday.

* U.S.: Native Americans have protested in California are upset at Pope Francis for his push to canonize Junipero Serra, an 18th-century friar accused of “brutally converted indigenous people to Christianity.”

YouTube Source – MOVIECLIPS
 
Online Sources – Variety, Financial Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Fox News Latino

Date Chosen for Beatification of Murdered Archbishop Romero

Another major step was taken on the path for sainthood for the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero when the day of his beatification was confirmed on Wednesday.

“Monsignor Romero will be proclaimed blessed in San Salvador on May 23,” affirmed Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia at a press conference where he appeared alongside President Salvador Sanchez Ceren.

The Episcopal Conference of El Salvador announced in February that the beatification ceremony would be held at the Divino Salvador del Mundo Square in the capital city of San Salvador.
Paglia praised Romero and acknowledged his sacrifice for the people of El Salvador before he was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980.

“Romero from heaven has become the good and blessed shepherd, who today unites all the people of El Salvador, the people for whom he gave his own life," said the main promoter in the campaign for Romero’s sainthood. "From heaven he wants all of El Salvador to walk on the path of justice and peace,” Paglia added.

As the Archbishop of San Salvador, Romero spoke out against the brutal repression carried out by the military in the early stages of El Salvador’s brutal civil war. Despite the constant threat against his own life, he was unafraid to use the pulpit to denounce human rights abuses and tirelessly advocate for the poor. His time as Archbishop was only three years yet his humanitarianism led his followers to consider him as “St. Romero of the Americas.”

Daily Headlines: April 28, 2014

* Vatican: Pope John II was officially declared a saint yesterday partly due to the reported healing of a brain aneurysm that affected Gloribeth Mora Diaz of Costa Rica.
 
* Panama: According to the latest polls the election for Panama’s next president on May 4th could be a neck-and-neck race between Jose Arias representing the ruling conservative party and “moderate leftist” candidate Juan Navarro.

* Brazil: Brazil’s civil aviation minister admitted that Rio de Janeiro’s main international airport could be hit by blackouts during the World Cup of soccer that begins in roughly six weeks.

* Peru: Some five hundred members of the Achuar indigenous group occupied Peru’s biggest oil field in the Amazon rainforest in order to call for the cleanup of oil that has spilled over the last few decades.
  
Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources – BBC News; ABC News; Reuters; Bloomberg; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: March 24, 2014

* El Salvador: Will Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered while celebrating Mass on this day 34 years ago, be granted sainthood by the Vatican within the next three years?

* Spain: Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi’s hat trick helped push Barcelona to a 4-3 victory against their traditional Spanish rivals Real Madrid.

* Brazil: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has reportedly come under fire over alleged irregularities in the costly purchase of a California oil refinery by Petrobras in 2006.

* Uruguay: President Jose Mujica of Uruguay said that his country would take in several Guantanamo Bay detainees in exchange for the U.S. freeing three Cubans convicted of spying in 2001.
 
Video Source – YouTube user interestmedia

Online Sources- The Pilot; SI.com; Forbes.com; Xinhua

Pope Gives Support to Colombia Peace Talks

Pope Francis gave his full support today to peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the country’s FARC rebels.

“Reference to the undergoing process of peace and the victims of conflict was not overlooked, with the wishes that the parties involved carry on negotiations, inspired by a sincere search for the common good and for reconciliation,” read a statement issued by the Vatican after the Argentine-born pontiff met privately on Monday with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

The leaders also discussed the “challenges that the country must face were taken into consideration, especially in regard to social inequalities” according to the Vatican statement.

"These past 24 hours have been very important for Colombia, for my government, for me as a president, for me as a person and for my family," Santos said after meeting with the first Latin American elected to head the Roman Catholic Church.

Representatives for the Colombian government and the FARC admitted earlier this month that progress has slowly been made in the peace talks that began last November.

On Sunday, Pope Francis canonized two female nuns from Latin America known for their unselfish work aiding the poor and the indigenous during the 20th century.  Laura Montoya and Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala became the first saints from Colombia and Mexico, respectively, and the Pope emphasized yesterday how they should serve as examples for Catholics to follow: