MURDERED Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified by the Roman Catholic church this weekend, the first step towards sainthood.

Pope Francis urged a crowd of 260,000 pilgrims in Rome’s St Peter’s Square to follow Mr Romero’s “heroic example.”

“He chose to be among his people, especially the poor and the oppressed, even at the price of his life,” he said.

Mr Romero was shot by a right-wing assassin while celebrating mass in 1980, a day after a sermon in which he had called on Salvadoran soldiers to stop participating in government repression.

Following the 1980-92 Salvadoran civil war, paramilitary death squad leader Roberto d’Aubuisson was named by a UN truth commission as the mastermind of the assassination.

Cardinal Angelo Amato told the crowds: “Romero’s spirit remains alive and gives comfort to the marginalised people of the world.

“His preference for the poor was not ideological, but evangelical. His charity extended to his persecutors.”