Millennium Post

4 men killed in shooting at child's birthday party in Texas Murdered Salvadoran, Pope Paul VI raised to sainthood

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TAFT (US): Investigat­ors say a party in South Texas to mark a toddler's first birthday erupted in gunfire, leaving four men dead and a fifth man wounded.

The Texas Department of Public Safety says the shooting happened shortly after 5 pm Saturday in Taft, 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of Corpus Christi. Sgt Nathan Brandley says an altercatio­n erupted between two families attending the party and escalated into a deadly shooting.

Brandley said the wounded man was airlifted to a Corpus Christi hospital.

His condition wasn't clear. Brandley said two suspects are on the loose. No identities or other details have been released. VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis raised slain Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI to sainthood on Sunday in a ceremony at the Vatican attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims.

"We declare and define Paul VI and Oscar 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," Francis said, before the crowds broke into wild applause.

The pair were elevated to the highest position in the Roman Catholic Church along with five others, including an Italian orphan who died of bone cancer aged 19 and a German nun.

Relics of each new saint were carried to the altar -- part of a bone for Romero and the shirt Paul VI was wearing when he was stabbed in an assassinat­ion attempt at Manila airport in 1970.

Among those present were El Salvadoran president Salvador Sanchez Ceren, Chile's president Sebastian Pinera and Spain's Queen Sofia.

Francis was wearing a blood-stained rope belt which belonged to Romero, who stood up for peasant rights in the face of a right-wing backlash and was murdered at the altar in 1980.

The pontiff was also to use a chalice and pastoral staff belonging to Paul VI in a canonisati­on being seen as a reminder of Francis's call for "a poor church for the poor".

Both men have been hailed by Francis for their courage in turbulent times and their dedication to social justice and the downtrodde­n.

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