--- title: In Naming Oscar Romero a Martyr Pope Francis Parts With American Right description: In naming Oscar Romero a martyr, he took a strong stand against those who would call the Salvadorean a communist canonical: https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/ author: Christopher Hale article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-04T23:35:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:41:41.235Z article:section: Ideas og:title: In Naming Oscar Romero a Martyr Pope Francis Parts With American Right og:description: In naming Oscar Romero a martyr, he took a strong stand against those who would call the Salvadorean a communist og:url: https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc81badb8579c8d6/69877db5524fc037c4dec4f7/pope-francis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3456 og:image:height: 1944 og:image:alt: &lt;&gt; on February 4, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: In Naming Oscar Romero a Martyr Pope Francis Parts With American Right twitter:description: In naming Oscar Romero a martyr, he took a strong stand against those who would call the Salvadorean a communist twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc81badb8579c8d6/69877db5524fc037c4dec4f7/pope-francis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pope Francis Just Showed He's Not Afraid to Part With the American Right > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=a63625b2-3ad9-4405-85ce-fe98d5933121&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Person of the Year 2013: Why TIME Chose Pope Francis [Watch (HLS stream): Person of the Year 2013: Why TIME Chose Pope Francis](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zqtsa2U6.m3u8) (2:55)  _Published 2013-12-11. TIME's Howard Chua-Eoan explains why Pope Francis is the Person of the Year._ by [Christopher Hale](https://time.com/author/christopher-j-hale-2/) ## Christopher Hale Feb 4, 2015 11:35 PM UTC  Pope Francis attends his weekly public audience at the Paul VI Hall on February 4, 2015 in Vatican City. Pope Francis attends his weekly public audience at the Paul VI Hall on February 4, 2015 in Vatican City. Franco Origlia—Getty Images by [Christopher Hale](https://time.com/author/christopher-j-hale-2/) ## Christopher Hale Feb 4, 2015 11:35 PM UTC On Tuesday, Pope Francis [declared](http://time.com/3693557/pope-francis-oscar-romero/) that Salvadorean Archbishop Oscar Romero was martyred “in hatred of the faith” and not killed for simply political reasons. Francis’s decision came nearly 35 years after Romero was assassinated by a right-wing death squad while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980\. His announcement opens the door for Romero’s beatification, the final stop on the road to sainthood in the Catholic Church. But the decision is not without controversy. Though the Vatican formally began the process to canonize Romero in 1997, it was blocked for years as Rome navigated a wider debate across the United States and global Catholic community about whether Romero was killed for defending the faith or for taking strong political stances against the Salvadorean government. During his pastoral ministry in San Salvador, Romero preached strongly against the violence that the military government committed against its political enemies—particularly against the nation’s poor and excluded. In a [passionate homily the Sunday before his death,](http://www.haverford.edu/relg/faculty/amcguire/romero.html) Romero called on the military to end the violence: --- > “” --- Many fault Catholic prelates for getting too involved in politics. But it’s important to note that when the Church engages in politics, it isn’t to pursue a political end, but rather to defend the dignity and the well being of God’s people. So Francis’s decision to honor Romero confirms what so many Catholics know to be true: to defend the poor is to defend the faith. Francis himself [has made this clear:](http://www.crs.org/united-states/pope-francis-on-care-for-the-poor/) “We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor.” Sadly, many within the Church and throughout society have tried to suggest that Romero’s consistent defense of the poor was somehow motivated by communist sentiments. Perhaps Romero could share the words of his contemporary, Brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara, [who said,](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/13/brazil-helder-camara) “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.” But as Vatican reporter [Inés San Martín rightly notes,](http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/03/pope-declares-oscar-romero-hero-to-liberation-theology-a-martyr/) Romero “condemned capitalism \[while\] at the same time he was fighting communism. In his sermons, he cautioned against the dangers of atheistic, materialistic Marxism and chastised leftists for criticizing American imperialism while turning a blind eye to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.” Many Americans are also uncomfortable that Romero stood up to a military government largely supported and subsidized by the United States. Romero himself took note of this situation and [wrote to President Jimmy Carter](http://www.mintpressnews.com/six-jesuit-scholars-american-war-self-determination/198932/), “The contribution of your government instead of promoting greater justice and peace in El Salvador will without doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their most fundamental human rights.” In light of Francis’s [September trip](http://time.com/3588870/pope-francis-philadelphia-visit/) to the United States, Romero’s beatification will likely only increase the discomfort of those Americans who presuppose that the pope and Catholic Church will rubber-stamp the current political and economic status quo of the United States, including potential 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who seemed [dismayed](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/marco-rubio-cuba-pope-criticism-113645.html) at Francis’s latest intervention in American foreign diplomacy. This is clearly a man (and a Church) who isn’t afraid to challenge the most powerful nation in the world. As is becoming more and more clear every day, Francis’s apostolic voyage across the Atlantic will be a chance for our nation to re-examine itself and its activities against the highest of moral standards. This shouldn’t be a surprise to people of faith, however. After all, it was Jesus himself who told us that the nations will be judged at the end of time by [a single criterion alone:](http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/25) “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” ## Transcript Pope Francis is TIME Magazine's 'Person of the Year'. He was the first Pope from the new world. Certainly the first from Latin America, that alone is historic. The fact that he comes at a time when the church seem to be needing a huge burst of energy. But then he has this charisma which seems to come out of nowhere. He's 77 years old, hence only, he is hugging people who you would not even want to touch. He is-- he is washing the feet of convicts, he is saying mass it for immigrants and it's this far away island in the middle of the Mediterranean. He says he wants a battlefield hospital church. Helping everyone who's in trouble, who is lonely, who needs an embrace. He is especially caring about the poor. That is the strongest message, and that is one that actually brings back so much of what the church has been trying to do with itself since the 1960s. There are several things that Francis has said that have basically excited a lot of people, Catholics and non- Catholics alike. When he was asked about homosexuals and gays, he said, 'who am I to judge'? When he talked about women who have had abortions and he said, we must always be aware of how much pain they have been through to go through all this. Same thing about divorced Catholics who remarry, then everyone starts to say, oh, he's going to allow a divorced Catholics to have communion, he is-- he's going to open the church to gay people, he is going to be much more open about abortions. But he, actually never said any of that. He was just being more open to these people are willing to come back to the Church without having to deal with the actual rules. And to see him be able to juggle all of these in the next year will be fascinating cause all the conservatives are watching him and worried that he's going to give away the authority of the Catholic Church. And all the liberals are worried that he's just going to say all these nice things and do nice gestures and not actually doing anything to change the church. So he has to balance up both sides. But the fact that he's given so many people so much hope and inspiration in the last nine months, don't even nine months. No one else has done that this year. And, and for that alone for certainly changing the way we think about the church and seemingly able to serve, even shift this 2000- year- old institution one way, he is 'Person of the Year'. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/"},"headline":"Pope Francis Just Showed He's Not Afraid to Part With the American Right","datePublished":"2015-02-04T23:35:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:41:41.235Z","description":"In naming Oscar Romero a martyr, he took a strong stand against those who would call the Salvadorean a communist","url":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/","keywords":["Religion","Pope Francis"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc81badb8579c8d6/69877db5524fc037c4dec4f7/pope-francis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Christopher Hale","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/christopher-j-hale-2/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc81badb8579c8d6/69877db5524fc037c4dec4f7/pope-francis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"<> on February 4, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican.","caption":"<> on February 4, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican.","creditText":"Franco Origlia—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/","name":"Pope Francis Just Showed He's Not Afraid to Part With the American Right"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Person of the Year 2013: Why TIME Chose Pope Francis","description":"TIME's Howard Chua-Eoan explains why Pope Francis is the Person of the Year.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zqtsa2U6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-12-11T12:42:20.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zqtsa2U6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/","duration":"PT2M55S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3696431/pope-romero-beatification/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```