Political Figure

In some Vatican circles Bishop Oscar Romero is seen, unfairly I believe, as an overly "political" figure. But that is an odd charge given the life of our most recently beatified cleric: Blessed John Paul II supported the Solidarity movement in Poland, worked with world powers to end the cold war and regularly conferred with political leaders.  Still, the delay continues. In 2006, en route to Latin America, Pope Benedict told reporters, "Romero as a person merits beatification." But Vatican officials later removed that phrase from the official transcript, retaining only the pope's praise of the slain prelate as a "great witness to the faith." The haste to beatify John Paul II was deemed by the journalist Michael Walsh in The Tablet of London, "unseemly." Unseemly to me is the slowness of the beatification of Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Santo immediatamente!

Link (here) to the full post by Fr. James Martin, S.J. at the left-wing Huffington Post