The Archbishop Emeritus of El Salvador, Msgr. Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, who was the confessor and spiritual director of the martyr Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero, passed away at the age of 89.
Through Twitter, the Archbishopric of San Salvador stated that “Monsignor Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, archbishop emeritus of San Salvador, passed away this morning. We commend his eternal rest.”
Bishop Sáenz Lacalle was born on November 16, 1932, in Cintruénigo (Spain).
He was ordained a priest at the age of 26, in 1959, incardinated in the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, an institution linked to the current Prelature of Opus Dei. In 1962 he arrived in El Salvador.
In 1984 Saint John Paul II named him Auxiliary Bishop of Santa Ana (El Salvador). By 1993 he would become the apostolic administrator of the country’s Military Ordinariate.
On April 22, 1995, Saint John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of San Salvador and received the Pope on his second visit to El Salvador, in 1996.
During his pastoral government, he was a clear defender of the right to life from conception and spoke out against attempts to decriminalize abortion in the country.