Pope Francis has conferred sainthood on murdered Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero at a ceremony in the Vatican.
Archbishop Romero, an outspoken advocate for peace during El Salvador’s civil war, is revered across Latin America as a champion of the poor.
He was gunned down by soldiers while giving mass in 1980. His killers have never been brought to justice.
Pope Francis also canonised Pope Paul VI, known for making reforms to the Catholic Church in the 1960s.
The bestowing of a sainthood onto Archbishop Romero has long been called for by Catholics in the region, the BBC’s Will Grant reports.
Pope Francis is leading a ceremony to elevate the two men, and five others, to sainthood in Saint Peter’s Square.
“We declare and define Paul VI and Óscar Arnulfo Romero Galdamez… to be saints and we enrol them among the saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church,” he told a crowd of 60,000 people, including multiple heads of state. Read more