The beatification of Fr Rutilio Grande has taken place in San Salvador on 22 January 2022. In Belgium, the community of the Lumen Vitae International Centre has the intention to join in this celebration on Tuesday 22 February with an academic act followed by the Eucharist and the naming of one of its premises after Rutilio Grande. Due to the pandemic this act probably will be postponed.

Born in 1928 in El Salvador, Rutilio Grande joined the Society of Jesus in 1945. He was ordained a priest in 1959. In 1962, he was sent to the International Institute Lumen Vitae in Brussels.

On his return to his country in 1964, he developed his ministry in the liberating line that was beginning to emerge on the continent. From the 1970s onwards, under the impulse of the choices made in Medellin (1968) by the Latin American episcopate, he committed himself to a pastoral action that sought to combine faith and the life of the poor peasants. His option caused conflict with the hierarchy.

In 1972, he was appointed parish priest of Aguilares, where he developed the basic ecclesial communities. In a country marked by inequality, his prophetic words and actions quickly became suspect in the eyes of the powerful and the military in their service.

On 12 March 1977, on his way to celebrate Mass in El Paisnal, his native village, he was murdered together with two lay people, Manuel Solorzano and Nelson Lemus. The funeral Mass, attended by the clergy of the diocese, was presided over by Archbishop Oscar Romero. The friendship between Fr Grande and Bishop Romero is long-standing. For the bishop, there is no doubt about the causes of his assassination: "His prophetic role and his pastoral efforts to raise popular awareness in his parish. [...] This ecclesial effort, stimulated by the Second Vatican Council, is certainly not pleasant for everyone, because it awakens the conscience of the people." (Communiqué from the Archbishop of San Salvador, 14 March 1977).

On 21 February 2020, Pope Francis recognised the martyrdom of Rutilio Grande and his two companions, and signed the decree of their beatification. For him, the miracle of Fr. Grande is the conversion of Bishop Romero. Indeed, the appointment of the "conservative" Romero as Archbishop of San Salvador has delighted the country's elites. But Fr. Grande's martyrdom, which occurred three weeks after he took office, made him a pastor close to his poor people. Three years later, on 24 March 1980, he himself was assassinated and his figure became a symbol of a church that sought to be the voice of the voiceless.

Luis Martinez-Saavedra (Professor at Lumen Vitae - Namur)