San Salvador, El Salvador, May 22, 2015 / 11:21 am (CNA).- The beloved Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was beatified El Salvador this weekend amid both celebration and what one critic calls skewed media reporting on the martyr's life. San Salvador's Federico Hernandez Aguilar, an expert on the history of the new blessed, debunked what he views as common misconceptions surrounding Romero – voicing his hope that the truth about the archbishop would emerge. Hernandez, former minister of culture and current executive director of the El Salvador's Chamber of Commerce, spoke to CNA about the diocesan priest who became archbishop of San Salvador in the period prior to the civil war. Beginning in 1980 and lasting 12 years, the war pitted leftist groups assembled in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) against the Armed Forces of El Salvador, connected to an extreme right-wing government. Amid the conflict, Archbishop Romero was brutally assassinated on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass. In February of this year, Pope Francis recognized the death of the Salvadoran prelate as having been for hatred of the faith – martyrdom – and approved his beatification. According to Hernandez, when he began to study the biographical documents of Romero, he realized that he “didn't have portrait, but a caricature” of the archbishop. “And I believe that this is what has happened to Salvadorans over the last 35 years.” “After his assassination in 1980, he began to be very manipulated, above all by the more radical left of the country, and this also weighed in against his image for many Salvadorans,” he said. “We are children of a civil war that polarized the country and still remains very polarized,” he added, listing out both factual errors and little-known details about the late archbishop. 1. Romero wasn't Marxist – he was convinced of the Gospel Hernandez says he's studied the diary of Archbishop Romero – along with pastoral letters and eight volumes of homilies – in which he says you can find “an integral dimension of the person, the things that he really said.” “Archbishop Romero embodied an evangelical calling, embodied this call that Jesus made to us to care for the poor, to watch over others, not to lock ourselves inside our own navels." Unfortunately, he said, “there are people who thing that he only criticized the violence of the army, which of course he criticizes, and very strongly, but he also criticized the violence that at that time the guerrillas began.” Archbishop Romero, he added, was also “very emphatic, first in saying that he was not in favor of Marxism, but also that the radicalized violence from Marxist ideas didn't lead to anything good.” The blessed was also a man of profound prayer and “faithful to the Catholic Church until the last day.” Romero “consulted everything with the Magesterium” with a special obedience to the Pope, “whom he recognized as Christ on earth.” 2. Romero had a deep love for Saint Josemaria Escriva and Opus Dei Hernandez also highlighted Romero's deep affection for the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei. “There is a relationship, throughout the entire life of Archbishop Romero, of love for the Work (Opus Dei),” he noted, and recalled “a meeting that he had with the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaria Escriva, in Rome.” “On one occasion, when he was already an archbishop, an order was received in Rome by St. Josemaria for the people of (Opus Dei) to treat him well, so that he could rest and be calm, because they saw him nervous, they saw him tense because of what was happening in El Salvador.” In 1975, after the death of the Opus Dei founder, “one of the first bishops in the world who sent letters to the Pope asking for his beatification was precisely Archbishop Romero,” Hernandez said. “Later, who was his successor in charge of Opus Dei, Mons. Alvaro del Portillo, now a Blessed too proclaimed by Pope Francis, they (Romero and Portillo) had a very affectionate correspondence.” 3. Romero never said: “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” Hernandez also emphasized that Archbishop Romero never pronounced one of the most popular phrases that is attributed to him. He pointed to Roberto Morozzo della Roca, an Italian researcher, who conducted a detailed investigation on the life of Archbishop Romero which was included inside of the process of beatification. In it, Hernandez said, it's clear “that the phrase is apocryphal.” “Morozzo della Roca make a very thorough investigation and discovered that a Guatemalan journalist published an interview that was allegedly given by phone between him and Mons. Romero, but published it just days after his murder. Archbishop Romero could not defend himself against it.” Morozzo della Roca also found “that the journalist already had a history of having lied in other interviews” and even years before attributed to himself “a very similar phrase to that which years later he attributed to Archbishop Romero.” On the contrary, “if one reads the spiritual notes of Archbishop Romero days, weeks before his assassination, one does not discover this messianism in Archbishop Romero.” “Archbishop Romero himself was afraid to die, he realized that his death was going to be violent also, and he had a natural fear,” Hernandez said, stressing that “it's clear that a phrase so messianic was not able to be said a few days before his death.” Archbishop Romero, he reiterated, “was very misrepresented. He himself...said, 'don't distort my words, please record the things that I said and how I said them.'” If “those who manipulated Archbishop Romero stop manipulating him – realizing that they destroy his message and and become murderers of his message, as others were to his person – this is going to help the country to finally reconcile,” he said. Read more

Santiago, Chile, May 22, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Constanza Saavedra spends 24 hours a day devoted to her son Ignacio, or “Nachito” as she affectionately calls him. He's only seven years-old and suffers from a serious congenital muscular condition that prevents him from breathing on his own. He depends on a respirator to survive. When he was born on August 17, 2008 in Santiago, Chile, the midwives advised the family not to get emotionally attached to him because he would probably die within a few hours. Surprisingly, it didn't happen. Ignacio's health is so delicate that his mother hardly ever leaves the house for fear of infecting him with some kind of virus or bacteria. She is with him all the time. Moreover, the cost of his care has become so high that this family has had to sell the little they had to survive and have had to move in with their parents. She and her husband Gonzalo Opazo have now dedicated their lives to care for their only child. For many, it's a devastating story – but for Saavedra, her son is the best thing that ever happened in her life and is the reason for her joy. “I am humbled to say I'm happy. I feel completely fulfilled. For me it's an honor that such a marvelous child should be my son,” she said in an interview with ACI Prensa. Due to his condition, Ignacio can't move most of his muscles and has to communicate through simple sounds. Consequently, he has daily physical therapy sessions to work on his motor skills and breathing as well as two days with a speech therapist. He spends most of his time in bed. His pastimes are reading and watching television, but without a doubt his favorite is playing with his mother. “For sure it’s a very serious muscular condition, and true, he cannot breathe without a respirator that breathes for him, but anybody who knows him realizes how immensely happy he is,” she said. “He is very intelligent, knows how to read, and communicates extremely well. We spend the whole day playing, learning, singing, reading, doing entertaining things…and he knows that his little head has no limits,” Saavedra said of her son. This mother is also a family doctor, but she could not continue practicing her profession at any medical facility after “Nachito” was born. However, as she says, this has been “the most important and beautiful medical challenge that I have been able to experience. In no way do I feel frustrated. I’ve learned a lot and I also have been able to help others.” Saavedra said that as a family “we have everything that matters to us. We're not lacking anything important. We enjoy our days and we want to continue this adventure with our son.” “For me it was never an option to abort Nachito. If I had known just how much I would be losing, it would have been the biggest mistake in the world,” she said. Saavedra noted, however, that many women in her country lack the support to make the same decision for their children. “There’s a problem…and we can’t cover it up,” she said. “Without support there are mothers and families nowadays that are shouldering a large percentage of the expense of having a child with a chronic illness. It happened to me and it’s happening to a lot of other mothers a lot worse than for me.” “You can’t put a price on the life of a child. And a family shouldn’t have to be out on the street because they put the well being and health of their child ahead of everything else,” she added. “So the government has to take the responsibility to guarantee all possible available support for these women, their children and their families.” Saavedra also runs the Facebook page “Testimonies for Life” that gathers together real life stories of mothers that have gone through an at-risk pregnancy such as she did, women who have decided to go forward with courage and resolve. “Every human life inherently has dignity,” she reflected. “Because what defines dignity? Health? If that’s the way it is then a high percentage of society would have lives without dignity.” “All the old people, all the people dependent on others, the little children, sick people, poor people. So who defines what dignity is? Another thing is quality of life. For me quality of life doesn’t consist in what you can or can’t do,” Saavedra said. “Rather, it’s about how much you enjoy your life, and how much you look forward to wake up the next day and go on living, and my son clearly enjoys his life.” Read more