It would be decades before Romero achieved sainthood, but his stature, even then, was unmatched. He was known in El Salvador as the “voice of the voiceless,” for his unyielding defense of the poor. He opened churches to thousands who’d been displaced, and exposed acts of aggression by the government and its right-wing allies. In a country darkened into total indecipherability by oppression and misinformation, his clarion statements became a national and international reference point. They showed the reality of a country descending into civil war.
