PODCAST: Beatification Process for Jesuit Rutilio Grande Opened

BY ISN STAFF | February 4, 2015

Earlier this week the Vatican announced that Pope Franics approved the recommendation of a Vatican committee declaring slain Archbishop Oscar Romero as “a martyr of the Church.” Vatican spokesman Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia said Romero’s beatification will happen in the next 12 months in El Salvador. Paglia also shared that the beatification process of Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande, murdered in 1977 in El Salvador, was opened three months ago in El Salvador. Paglia noted the importance of this by saying that it would be impossible to understand Romero without understanding Fr. Grande.

Thomas M. Kelly, Ph.D., a professor Systematic Theology at Creighton University, is the author of When the Gospel Grows Feet: Rutilio Grande, SJ and the Church of El Salvador, an Ecclesiology in Context. Speaking from his office at Creighton in Omaha, Nebraska, Tom offers insights on this news from the Vatican on both Archbishop Romero and Fr. Grande.