Bishops of El Salvador: Oscar Romero to become church teacher

The Bishops of El Salvador have asked Pope Leo XIV during their ad-limina visit to the Vatican to declare Oscar Romero a Church teacher. 

As a gift, they handed the Pope a relic of the saint, as the Spanish online medium "Religión Digital" reported on Tuesday. Leo XIV therefore accepted the request in a benevolent manner, but emphasized the weighing process, which preceded such a decision.

Leo XIV has a special relationship with Oscar Romero. So he told the bishops from El Salvador that he asked daily for his intercession and regularly carried a saint's image and an unspecified relic of third class of Romero. 

Third-class relics are objects that have come into contact with a first-class relic—a body part, blood, or the ashes of a saint. Such, also unnamed, relic of the first class, the bishops presented the Pope with as a gift.

Martyrs for Social Justice

As part of their ad limina visit, the bishops spoke with various dicasteries and celebrated the Eucharist at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. 

The President of the Bishops’ Conference and Archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar, subsequently emphasized the paternal nature of the Pope. The mood of the meeting was brotherly and cordial. Ad limina visits usually take place every five years. 

The bishops of a local church inform the Pope and dicastery representative in Rome about the state of their respective dioceses.

Oscar Romero was Archbishop of San Salvador and was shot dead by a soldier during a Mass in 1980. He was long considered controversial in the church because of his proximity to liberation theology. 

Romero criticized the military dictatorship of El Salvador (1931–1979) and advocated for social justice. In 2018 he was canonized.