Óscar Romero

Lived

1917–1980

Era

Twentieth century and after

Where

El Salvador

Tradition

Roman Catholic

Shot at the altar for naming what was happening

A cautious and bookish Salvadoran priest appointed archbishop in 1977 precisely because the government expected no trouble from him, and who changed after a friend, the priest Rutilio Grande, was murdered weeks later.

Why it matters

He spent three years documenting killings and disappearances in weekly broadcast sermons that much of the country listened to, because no other source would name them. The day before he died he appealed directly to soldiers to disobey orders to kill. He was shot the next evening while saying mass. Some forty people were killed by gunfire at his funeral. He was canonised in 2018, after decades in which his cause was held up by suspicion that he had been political.

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.