Pope Francis upholds the witness and model provided by 27 Dominican martyrs, just beatified in Seville, whom he says, show us the way to holiness.
By Linda Bordoni
Recalling the beatification in the Spanish city of Seville on Saturday, of 27 Dominican martyrs, Pope Francis said that even amid the cruelty that marked the Spanish Civil War, there was no shortage of examples of luminous faith.
The Pope mentioned the names of some of the men and women whom, he said, “were killed in hatred of the faith during the religious persecution that occurred in Spain within the contest of the civil war of the last century.”
“Their witness of adherence to Christ and forgiveness for their killers show us the way to holiness and encourage us to make life an offering of love to God and our brothers and sisters.”
The religious from the Dominican family, he recalled include “Angelo Marina Alvarez and nineteen companions; Giovanni Aguilar Donis and four companions from the Order of the Friars Preachers; Isabella Sanchez Romero, an elderly nun from the Order of St. Dominic; and Fructuoso Perez Marquez, a lay Dominican tertiary.”
He concluded by asking for an applause for the new Blesseds.
Beatification Mass celebrated by Cardinal Semeraro
During the Mass celebrated in Seville Cathedral by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the figures of the martyrs were remembered, and described as “A multitude who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.”
“Our new Blesseds were very different persons in terms of character and personal stories,” Semeraro said, “They had in common, however, the charism of St. Dominic: a vocational choice lived with fidelity, consistency, generosity.”
The 18 June Mass brought to 2,112 the total of Catholic martyrs beatified or canonized from the Spanish Civil War, which saw 2,000 churches destroyed and up to 8,000 clergy killed, along with tens of thousands of lay Catholics.
