海角大神

It鈥檚 been dubbed the 鈥淔rancis effect.鈥�

In ways large and small, Pope Francis is having an impact on Roman Catholics in Latin America. He鈥檚 pushing ahead with sainthood for a controversial martyred prelate in El Salvador. He鈥檚 mending fences with proponents of a theology that the Vatican once shunned for its Marxist whiff. And he鈥檚 cautiously embraced new, livelier styles of worship that his predecessors had discouraged.

The changes have won Pope Francis grassroots support, even as they have rattled the church鈥檚 bishops, most of whom were installed during the tenures of his more conservative predecessors.

Nowhere is that conflict more evident than in this small Central American country, where a generation ago the church was at the center of what would become a civil war that would claim tens of thousands of lives.

It was aboard an Alitalia charter in mid-August that the pontiff announced that he was pressing the Vatican bureaucracy to hurry with the beatification of Salvadoran Archbishop聽, an advocate for the poor and a critic of the Salvadoran military who was slain by a right-wing assassin in 1980.

鈥淚t鈥檚 very important to move in haste,鈥� Francis told reporters aboard the airliner. 鈥淔or me, Romero is a man of God.鈥�

El Salvador鈥檚 bishops reacted with public delight, but longtime observers said there was anything but glee behind closed doors among those who still view Monsignor Romero as a sympathizer of the political left.

鈥淭he beatification of Monsignor Romero will be like a bucket of cold water for them. They neither agreed with him in his life nor after his death,鈥� said Carlos Ayala Ramirez, the director of the radio station at the Jesuit Central American University in San Salvador.

A rifleman in a red Volkswagen shot Romero in the chest as he celebrated Mass in a chapel on March 24, 1980. At his massive funeral six days later, explosions and gunshots roiled the huge crowd, which stampeded, leaving some 30 people dead. Romero became a hero to the poor as the nation careened toward a civil war that took 70,000 lives over the next 12 years.

In 1993, a United Nations-backed truth commission set up under peace accords that ended the war a year earlier put the blame for the plot to kill Romero on a former army major, Roberto d鈥橝ubuisson, the infamous 鈥淏lowtorch Bob鈥� whose death squads killed hundreds of suspected leftists before and during the war.

Romero was the most prominent of numerous clergy killed in that period 鈥� a total of 18 priests and four U.S. nuns or lay workers were slain from the 1970s till 1989.

鈥淲hen Romero died, there was silence in the Vatican,鈥� said the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a Spanish Jesuit who teaches theology at Central American University. Under then-Pope John Paul II, the Vatican slowed any move to make the slain archbishop a saint.

鈥淭he word was, 鈥業t鈥檚 not an opportune time,鈥欌�� Sobrino said. 鈥淧owerful cardinals were enemies of Romero, and the canonization didn鈥檛 move forward. Why not? Because it is not easy to canonize Jesus of Nazareth. He was against so many people, the high priests, the wealthy.鈥�

Today, Romero鈥檚 image is painted on schools across the country, and the former guerrilla movement known as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, in power since 2009, has renamed the national airport and a highway for Romero.

鈥淭he FMLN has basically adopted Romero as its patron saint,鈥� said Paolo Luers, a newspaper columnist sharply critical of the government. 鈥淭his political usage bothers me and I think it bothers people in the church as well.鈥�

Some Catholics elsewhere pray the beatification provides a healing message.

鈥淗is sainthood will be a way to not only rise above politics but hopefully unify all the divergent elements of Salvadoran society,鈥� said Richard Coll, a Latin America policy adviser to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The impatience that Pope Francis, an Argentine and a Jesuit, has shown with the Romero beatification process is one of many qualities that those long acquainted with him say are core to his character. Other qualities include humility, personal austerity, and a reluctance to condemn, seeking instead to include. He also can be severe with those who fail the church, particularly in cases of sexual abuse.

鈥淗e is a man who deeply understands human nature鈥� and has 鈥渁 very keen political instinct,鈥� said Jose Maria Poirier, editor of the Criterio Catholic magazine in Buenos Aires and an old acquaintance from when Francis was known as Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Whether the pontiff can renew a Catholic Church that has lost tens of millions of adherents in Latin America to Protestant groups is up for debate.

鈥淚f the question is, 鈥業s he going to be able to revitalize the Catholic Church and halt the decline in numbers?鈥� it is a little too early to know,鈥� said Daniel H. Levine, a political scientist emeritus at the University of Michigan who is an expert on religion in Latin America.

In a聽聽Levine used the term 鈥淔rancis effect鈥� to tally the signals that the pontiff has offered of a more humble, more inclusive pontificate with strong appeal in Latin America.

They include the pope鈥檚 demand for a change in US policy toward migrant children so they鈥檇 be 鈥渨elcomed and protected.鈥�

He鈥檚 also taken the stigma away from Liberation Theology, the current that originated in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s. It adopted the use of 海角大神ity to fight social injustice, sometimes applying the theory of class struggle.

Detractors viewed the doctrine as 海角大神ized Marxism, and during the 27-year papacy of John Paul II, who rose to prominence battling communists in his native Poland, its proponents were largely silenced.

Francis has taken steps to reverse that. He met with Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian priest who coined the term Liberation Theology, a meeting, Levine said, that 鈥渨as a surprise to many in Peru.鈥�

In a little noticed action in August, Pope Francis also lifted a nearly three-decade ban on the priestly functions of Miguel D鈥橢scoto Brockmann, a Nicaraguan who became foreign minister in the revolutionary Sandinista government of the 1980s, earning John Paul鈥檚 enmity.

Another was Ernesto Cardenal, who literally faced a wagging finger of disapproval when Pope John Paul visited Nicaragua in 1983, and Cardenal, an acclaimed poet who鈥檇 joined the Sandinista government, tried to kiss the papal ring. The pope shook his index finger in anger. Later, the Vatican defrocked Cardenal.

Cardenal, who later broke with the Sandinistas, never asked to be restored to the priesthood. But D鈥橢scoto had appealed his suspension, several experts said, and restoring him to the priesthood was a compassionate act for an aging man as well as an effort to bridge decades-old divisions in the church.

Pope Francis鈥� actions, however, face a church hierarchy shaped under John Paul, who in the years he reigned, 1978 to 2005, made 18 trips to Latin America. Under John Paul, the church hierarchy in the region tilted right.

鈥淓very time they had to appoint a new bishop in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, they would appoint a more conservative bishop,鈥� said Jakob Thorsen, an expert on Catholicism in Latin America at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Pope Francis鈥� also is pressing to find priests who embrace a livelier worship experience to compete with Pentecostal 海角大神s, who鈥檝e made inroads in the last two decades in Brazil, Colombia and Central America with a more emotional approach to religion that includes spirited preaching, popular music and speaking in tongues.

Francis has made it clear that the Vatican doesn鈥檛 have doctrinal differences with charismatic Catholics, who also try to emphasize a direct experience of divine power in song and prayer. He met with 50,000 charismatics from 55 nations in Rome鈥檚 Olympic Stadium June 1 and knelt on stage as those present prayed for him, some of them speaking in tongues.

鈥淚n the early years of the charismatic renewal in Buenos Aires, I did not have much love for charismatics,鈥� the pontiff said.

But his presence at the meeting indicated change of heart.

鈥淗e sees them as the possible future of the Catholic Church in Latin America. They are the energizers. They are missionaries who get people who don鈥檛 go to church often to come back,鈥� said Thorsen, the Danish academic.

鈥淭he church wants to do whatever it can to make the members of the charismatic movement feel that they have a home in Catholicism,鈥� added the U.S. Conference of Bishops鈥� Coll.