VATICAN (CNS): Carrying Pope Paul VI’s pastoral staff and wearing the blood-stained belt of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, Pope Francis formally recognised them, along with five others, as saints of the Catholic Church.
 
Thousands of pilgrims from the new saints’ home countries—Italy, El Salvador, Spain and Germany—were joined by tens of thousands of others on October 14 in St. Peter’s Square to celebrate the universal recognition of the holiness of men and women they already knew were saints.
 

VATICAN  (CNS): Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador, El Salvador, asked Pope Francis to proclaim St. Oscar Romero the first Doctor of the Church from Latin America. 
 
“I wish to take this occasion to implore you, Holy Father, in the name of the shepherds and the people of God, in the most attentive, humble and respectful way, to authorise the opening of the process so that St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero be declared ‘Doctor of the Church,’” Archbishop Escobar said on October 15. 
 

WASHINGTON (CNS): A recent editorial in the April 22 issue of Orientacion, the weekly publication of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, proposed that the canonisation of Blessed Oscar Romero should be held in El Salvador around World Youth Day, which will take place in January 2019 in nearby Panama.
 

VATICAN (CNS and SE): Pope Francis cleared the way for the canonisations of Blessed Pope Paul VI and Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero at a meeting on March 6 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
 
He recognised a miracle attributed to Blessed Paul, who, according Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, will be declared a saint in late October at the end of the Synod of Bishops on youth and discernment.