by the El Reportero’s wire services
El Salvador readies today several celebrations to accompany at a distance the canonization of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, scheduled for next October 14 in the Vatican.
The Catholic Church of this Central American nation will gather a national meeting called ‘Your faith made you a saint’, to honor the bishop whose murder by death squads in 1980 still is unpunished.
Father Santos Belisario, of the Youth Pastoral of the Archbishopric of San Salvador, invited citizens to join in this feast of faith and unity to celebrate the proclamation of the first Salvadoran saint.
The event will include chants, lectures, testimonies and papers in the crypt of pious Romero in the Metropolitan Cathedral, besides children activities in the nearby Morazan Square and a pilgrimage to the Barrios square.
There will be a vigil to await the transmission of the canonization ceremony in the square of St. Paul in the Holy See, at 02:00 am (local time) and 10:00 am in Rome.
Also, the event will gather organizations defenders of human rights, grassroots ecclesiastical communities, historical memory groups and others dedicated to the search of disappeared children, among others.
The canonization celebration will conclude almost in the early hours of Sunday October14 with chants at the crypt where many already revere as St. Romero of America.
Parents file federal lawsuit over murder of their son in Fresno County jail
Young man with no criminal history was placed among hardened violent offenders
A federal lawsuit will be filed this morning in U.S. District Court in Fresno by Carlos and Anna Herrera, the parents of Lorenzo Herrera, a 19-year-old who was murdered at the Fresno County Jail.
On March 26, 2018, Lorenzo was found strangled in his cell at the Fresno County Jail. He had no criminal history and was in custody because his family could not afford to pay bail.
The lawsuit alleges multiple violations of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the county jail and the Fresno Sheriff’s Office’s failure to protect Lorenzo, who had not been convicted of any crime and had been placed among violent offenders in an area not subject to direct observation by guards or security cameras. The suit also alleges wrongful death and seeks compensatory and punitive damages as well as injunctive relief.
Nearly six months after his death, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department has provided no answers regarding who killed Lorenzo, or why none of the guards was aware of any details of the murder.
Lorenzo was born in Fresno, and graduated from Reedley High School one year before his death. He was a popular member of the football team and had many friends. He was working as a custodian at Kings Canyon Unified School District.
“What troubles us is that Fresno County has been under a federal court order to add deputies to supervise its prisoners,” said the family attorney Arturo J. González. “And that has not happened. Understaffed facilities pose dangers to inmates and the deputies who guard them. That has to change, and it has to change now.”
The parents and their counsel are asking the public for help. “Someone knows who killed Lorenzo,” said Ms. Kruze. “We need them to be strong and do the right thing. Come forward and bring justice to his family.”
“We want to do what we can to fight for our son,” said Lorenzo’s father, Carlos Herrera. “What happened to him was wrong, and we want to prevent this from happening to another family.”
