by Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) – At a March 15 Mass in Washington, D.C., marking the 34th anniversary of the killing of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez of San Salvador said there’s strong hope and signals from the Vatican that beatification for the man many consider a modern-day saint will come in three years.

Bishop Rosa Chavez, a contemporary of Archbishop Romero, spent the weekend visiting various parishes in the Washington area that were remembering the life and the circumstances of Archbishop Romero’s death.

He was killed March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. He was an ardent voice against violence and publicly denounced the circumstances that led to unfair economic conditions for the poor of El Salvador.

“This news brought us great happiness and hope that [Archbishop Romero] will be in the highest of altars to serve as an example for all Christians,” said Capuchin Franciscan Father Moises Villalta, pastor of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, where Bishop Rosa Chavez spoke.

The parish serves a largely Salvadoran population in Washington that includes hundreds of families and individuals who fled the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s and the early 1990s.

The conflict in El Salvador lasted from roughly 1979 to 1992 and more than 75,000 Salvadorans, including Archbishop Romero, were killed, according to the U.N. Many civilians left the tiny Central American country and fled for protection to the U.S., Europe and Australia, among other places. Others “disappeared” and have never been found.