en.wikipedia.org

As archbishop, Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. In 1980, Romero was fatally shot by an assassin while celebrating Mass. Though no one was ever convicted for the crime, investigations by the UN-created Truth Commission for El Salvador concluded that Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a death squad leader and later founder of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party, had ordered the killing.

Initially seen as a social conservative at the time of his appointment as archbishop in 1977, Romero was deeply affected by the murder of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande and thereafter became an outspoken critic of the military government of El Salvador. Hailed by supporters of liberation theology, Romero's relationship with this theology was debated and initially led to impediments in his beatification process, with both denials and affirmations of Romero adhering to it. According to his biographer Michael E. Lee, since Romero's theological thought and homilies extensively utilized the theme of liberation, and Romero borrowed numerous controversial elements of liberation theology, he "can be seen as an exemplar of liberation theology."