Pope Francis has declared Oscar Romero a martyr of the faith, paving the way for the murdered Salvadoran archbishop to be beatified, a step toward sainthood. A right-wing death squad executed Romero in a hospital chapel in 1980 while he was celebrating Mass just a day after he preached a sermon asking government soldiers to stop their repression. No one was ever tried for the killing. The beatification had been delayed by the Vatican’s doctrine office for decades because of concerns over the priest’s leftist leanings. While Romero was not openly affiliated with liberation theology, the leftist Catholic movement, he was seen as sympathetic to it because he opposed Latin America’s repressive right-wing dictatorships