SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- COVID-19 put a damper on last year’s celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of St. Oscar Romero’s martyrdom, but a continuing pandemic couldn’t stop this year’s festivities.

CHALATENANGO, El Salvador -- Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez asked the country to pray "for liberation from Satan" Feb. 1 after violence erupted following a political rally late Jan. 31 in the capital, San Salvador.

VATICAN CITY -- The September conviction of a former Salvadoran colonel for the murder of five Spanish Jesuit priests during El Salvador’s civil war is a major step forward on the path to gaining justice and healing old wounds, Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny said.

MEXICO CITY -- Inocente Orlando Montano, the former Salvadoran army colonel accused of participating in "the decision, design or execution of the killings" of six Jesuits in 1989, testified in his Spanish trial that no order was ever given to eliminate the priests.

MEXICO CITY -- A former Salvadoran army officer has testified that the "high command" gave orders to eliminate Jesuits priests during the country's civil war. He also said the Central American country's president would have known of the crimes to be committed and did not intervene.

MEXICO CITY -- A Salvador cardinal urged "prudence" from the politicians in the Central American country as the president pushed congress to approve a package of security spending.

WASHINGTON -- A 34-year-old sacristan is in the custody of Salvadoran authorities in connection with the May killing of a Salvadoran priest.

WASHINGTON – One of the founders of liberation theology in Latin America said he supports an effort to declare St. Oscar Romero a doctor of the Catholic Church.

WAAHINGTON – The human rights office for the Archdiocese of San Salvador is taking the country's judicial system to task, urging the prompt prosecution of those responsible in the assassination of St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero, calling for an end to "creative" excuses for not doing so.

WASHINGTON – Days after the Catholic Church declared Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in El Salvador issued a capture order for a former military captain suspected of killing the religious leader in 1980 as he celebrated Mass.

VATICAN – Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador asked Pope Francis to proclaim St. Oscar Romero the church's first Latin American "doctor of the church."

VATICAN – Carrying Pope Paul VI's pastoral staff and wearing the blood-stained belt of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, Pope Francis formally recognized them, and five others, as saints of the Catholic Church.

It’s a nine-hour flight from Toronto to Vatican City. It’s seven hours by jet to El Salvador. But Msgr. Oscar Romero’s canonization on Oct. 14 will not be a distant event for many Catholics. 

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – El Salvador's bishops urged lawmakers to discard any plans for privatizing water in the Central American country, saying the poor could not afford to pay the cost of a vital necessity.

WASHINGTON – A surprising item appears in a proposal requesting donations on behalf of a Jesuit-run radio station in Honduras: bullet-proof glass for the front office.