CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA DE SAN SALVADOR

Destroyed by fire in the 1950s, San Salvador's Metropolitan Cathedral was rebuilt in 1999. It was the last cathedral built in the ^20th century. It is located on Plaça Cívica, a stone's throw from the National Palace. Although today the cathedral is all in white, this was not always the case.

Fernando Llort's mosaic destroyed. In 1997, the cathedral's facade was adorned with a gigantic mosaic, a beautiful work of art by Fernando Llort, using naive, Indian-inspired paintings in sparkling colors. The mosaic was destroyed on December 30, 2011, at the request of José Luis Escobar Alas, Archbishop of San Salvador, despite the opposition of the Llort family and government cultural and heritage authorities, who did everything in their power to protect the cathedral's priceless cultural heritage. Archbishop Alas cited aesthetic, maintenance and restoration reasons..

The tomb of Monsignor Óscar Romero, a human rights activist assassinated in 1980 during the civil war, is located in the cathedral's basement. The bronze-covered mausoleum measures 2.50 meters and was created by Italian sculptor Paolo Borghi. The tomb is a place of pilgrimage: John Paul II paid his respects there twice, in 1983 and 1996, and US President Obama in 2011. His beatification was celebrated in San Salvador on May 23, 2015 in front of 300,000 people.