5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT OSCAR ROMERO

1 SET FOR SAINTHOOD

Pope Francis has said that Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI will be made saints. Francis signed a decree confirming a miracle attributed to Romero’s intercession on Tuesday, the same day he approved a miracle for Paul VI, another important figure for the 20th century Catholic Church, the Vatican said Wednesday.

2 WHO WAS ROMERO?

Romero was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. He was gunned down by El Salvador’s right-wing death squads on March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel. The country’s military dictatorship had opposed his preaching against the army’s repression of the poor at the start of the country’s 1980-1992 civil war.

3 WHY WAS SAINTHOOD STALLED?

The case had been held up for years by the Vatican, primarily due to opposition from conservative Latin American churchmen who feared Romero’s perceived association with liberation theology would embolden the movement that holds that Jesus’ teachings require followers to fight for social and economic justice.

4 WHAT WAS ROMERO’S MIRACLE?

The Vatican official who spearheaded his sainthood cause, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, said the miracle concerned the pregnant, terminally ill Salvadoran woman who was “condemned to death” by illness but lived, and gave birth to a healthy child. The woman’s husband and friends prayed to Romero.

5 WHEN WILL THE PAIR BE CANONIZED?

No date was set for either canonization. Paglia said he hoped the two would be declared saints together in October.