Pope declares sacred bishop Romero killed by death squad

rome - Pope Francis declares Sunday morning the Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, who was murdered in 1980, holy. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend the ceremony at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

Romero (1917-1980) was a socially committed advocate of human rights and archbishop of San Salvador. He was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while in the Salvadoran capital he was celebrating a mass. It is believed that right-wing death squads were responsible for the murder, which shocked the world.

The year in which Romero was killed counts as the first year of a dragging guerrilla war of far-left insurgents against Salvadoran government forces, which were supported by the United States. Romero is regarded in Latin America as a figurehead of a socially moved Roman Catholic church that clashed with conservatives and fanatical opponents of leftist ideologies.

The Italian Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) is also raised in the Holy See on Sunday.