Martyrs of El Salvador are closer to canonization

Forty-five years after a right-wing death squad gunned down the Rev. Rutilio Grande along with two Catholic laymen, Manuel Solórzano and Nelson Lemus, in El Salvador, Jesús Aguilar still vividly remembers the sadness and dread of that day.

But as the sun went down on March 12, 1977, Aguilar also remembers thinking life was about to get a lot more difficult.

"It was a moment of complete sadness, not just because of their deaths, but you could foresee a situation of persecution much more complicated than what was happening at the moment, " said Aguilar, 65. He remembers rushing the few blocks from his home in Aguilares to the church and seeing the bodies near the altar.

Aguilar recently relived his memories of that day when he traveled in January to El Salvador from his Los Angeles home for the beatification of Grande, Solórzano, Lemus and the Rev. Cosme Spessotto, an Italian friar shot dead by Salvadoran soldiers in 1980 as he prayed in his parish church. The ceremony represents the first step toward sainthood for the men, who were proclaimed martyrs last year, paving the way for their beatification without miracles being attributed to their intercession.