Papa Francisco. The news of Pope Francis’s death has resonated worldwide, but few places feel the loss as profoundly as El Salvador.
Devoted Salvadoran Catholics view Pope Francis’s passing not just as the end of a papacy but as the loss of a beloved spiritual father who forever transformed the country’s religious landscape.
Pope Francis left a profound legacy in El Salvador: a saint, a cardinal, and four blessed, all recognized during his transformative leadership of the Catholic Church. His impact is more vividly felt in no other Central American country.
Despite their grief, Salvadorans remain grateful. Devout followers of priests Óscar Arnulfo Romero and Rutilio Grande, both assassinated during the country’s years of civil strife, remember Pope Francis not only for mourning these martyrs but for lifting them to the altars of the Church.
In February 2015, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing Romero’s martyrdom, concluding that the archbishop had been killed “out of hatred of the faith.” This pivotal decision cleared the way for Romero’s beatification without requiring the traditional confirmation of a miracle.
On May 23, 2015, under the open sky of Plaza Salvador del Mundo in San Salvador, thousands of parishioners wept with emotion as they witnessed Romero—”the voice of the voiceless”—officially declared Blessed.
Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass, became El Salvador’s first blessed, forever transforming the small Central American nation of six million people into a beacon of faith and perseverance.
But Pope Francis’s commitment to El Salvador went further. In June 2017, he named Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chávez—a close friend of Romero—the country’s first cardinal.
A year later, in 2018, Pope Francis canonized Romero, cementing him as a saint of El Salvador and all the Americas.
Salvadorans filled the streets, gathering around televisions in the capital to celebrate the canonization, singing, crying, and honoring their beloved martyr.
Earlier this year, on March 24, the country marked the 45th anniversary of Saint Romero’s assassination. Justice for Romero’s killers remains elusive, decades after his assassination, highlighting the enduring scars of El Salvador’s civil war.
When a man gives an order to kill, the Law of God must prevail, which says: DO NOT KILL”… No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the Law of God. Oscar Arnulfo Romero.
Pope Francis also commemorated Father Rutilio Grande, an emblematic figure in the Salvadoran faith. Father Grande was ambushed and killed in 1977, an event that profoundly influenced Romero’s path to martyrdom.
In 2020, Pope Francis officially recognized Grande’s martyrdom. In January 2022, Cardinal Rosa Chávez presided over his beatification ceremony at Plaza Salvador del Mundo.
That same ceremony also beatified Father Cosme Spessotto, an Italian missionary slain in 1980, as well as lay collaborators Manuel Solórzano and Nelson Rutilio Lemus—adding to the roster of Salvadoran martyrs now honored by the Church.
Following Pope Francis’s death, the Catholic Church in El Salvador expressed its gratitude in a solemn statement:
“We deeply thank the Holy Father Francis for the canonization of Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Bishop and Martyr, on October 14, 2018, in Rome; and the Beatification of our Martyrs Father Rutilio Grande, Father Cosme Spessotto, Manuel Solórzano and Nelson Rutilio Lemus, on January 22, 2022, in San Salvador.”
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis’s legacy in El Salvador will endure far beyond his earthly life.
