EL SALVADOR
A Political Saint
An archbishop who spoke out against El Salvador’s death squads and was assassinated by a sniper for his words will be named a saint by the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has announced.
Archbishop Óscar Romero was a prominent critic of the brutal tactics of the US-backed Salvadorean army during the country’s 12-year civil war from 1980 to 1992. The church said in a statement that Pope Francis signed decrees on Tuesday approving his canonization, along with that of Pope Paul VI, who oversaw many of the reforms the Catholic Church underwent in the 1960s, the BBC reported.
Romero was gunned down on March 24, 1980, as he celebrated mass in a hospital chapel, just a day after he chastised the country’s National Guard and police, saying, “The law of God which says thou shalt not kill must come before any human order to kill. It is high time you recovered your conscience.”
No one has been prosecuted for his murder, and his beatification was blocked for decades by conservative Cardinals who believed he was killed because of his politics rather than his preaching.
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