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An archbishop who was murdered in 1980 by a right-wing death squad in El Salvador will be made a saint, the Vatican said on Wednesday. The Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero is seen as an icon of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America.

The announcement was made by Pope Francis at a meeting of cardinals called to give the final approval to several sainthood causes. 

On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot dead as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel in impoverished El Salvador. He had often publicly condemned repression and poverty in his homilies.

Nobody was ever brought to justice for his murder, which was one of the most dreadful event to have happened during the long conflict between a series of U.S.-backed governments and leftist rebels in which thousands were killed by right-wing and military death squads. 

Pope Francis, who is the from Latin America, had started the process of making Romero a saint in 2015, saying he had been killed "in hatred of the faith" and beatifying him. He added that the late archbishop should be declared a saint, after a Vatican theological and medical commission approved a miracle attributed to him.

The Catholic Church teaches that though it is God who performs miracles, saints who are believed to be with God in heaven can intercede on behalf of people who pray to them.