Monsignor Romero

Monsignor Romero

Without slow airmail

between Rome and San Salvador,

the eucharist that morning in the chapel

would be proven canonically defect

lacking apostolic juristictions

Without Words made flesh

into water, salt and grain,

gunpowder from a kneeling sniper,

white cottonlace soaked in blood

no valid sacramental matter

and proper apostolic form

Without the beatification of the signer

the posthumous receiver of the apostolic message

would wait in vain for a letter of excommunication

transformed into a papal note of beatification

Erik Westerberg