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THOUSANDS are expected to attend the beatification ceremony of a Catholic priest shot dead in El Salvador by US-funded death squads, the church said yesterday.
The chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Salvador Rafael Urrutia said that they had prepared 6,000 chairs for the event which will bestow sainthood on Rutilio Grande who was assassinated in 1977.
Pope Francis has personally delegated Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez to perform the beatification ceremony of “the Salvadoran martyrs” on his behalf.
Italian priest Cosme Spessotto, who was shot dead by CIA-backed paramilitaries while kneeling in prayer in church in 1980, will also be beatified.
Washington armed and funded death squads as part of its dirty war on El Salvador during its civil war between 1979 and 1992.
They targeted social leaders, including priests, who they accused of being supporters of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.
Extrajudicial killings are said to have continued with the military and National Civil Police said to be responsible for 1,800 deaths between 2015 and 2020.
