SAN SALVADOR (CNS) -- As the 30th anniversary of the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero approaches, El Salvador's bishops have agreed to write a letter to the Vatican supporting Romero's canonization.

"As church, it is our great desire that Archbishop Romero be canonized as soon as possible," San Salvador Archbishop Jose Escobar Alas told reporters Feb. 7.

Archbishop Escobar said the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes is considering the matter.

"We have had no communication from the congregation about dates or how things are going," he said. "This is a process that the church does with privacy. The process demands silence, secrecy and respect for the person being examined."

He said the bishops had agreed to form a commission to write a letter "that would help in the process of canonization," but had not yet drafted the missive.

"I ask you, the Salvadoran people and the world, to pray to God by the intercession of Archbishop Romero," he said.

Archbishop Romero was gunned down while celebrating Mass March 24, 1980, shortly after a radio broadcast in which he urged Salvadoran soldiers to stop turning their weapons on civilians in El Salvador's civil war.

The canonization cause entered the verification phase in 2000. In 2005, around the 25th anniversary of the prelate's death, the Vatican informed the Salvadoran bishops that the cause had passed the first phase of verification.

Although formal canonization is a slow process, many Salvadorans have considered the archbishop a saint since his murder. His image hangs in many churches, and there are icons of "St. Romero."

In May 2007, en route to Brazil, reporters asked Pope Benedict XVI about Archbishop Romero's cause. The pope said the archbishop was "certainly a great witness of the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace and against the dictatorship."

"That the person himself merits beatification, I do not doubt," the pope said. But he said problems had been created when some groups unjustly tried to co-opt Archbishop Romero as a political figure. He added that work on the sainthood cause was proceeding.

Beatification is one of the steps toward sainthood.

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