With the approval on June 1, 2007, by the Holy Father, of the decrees of recognition of martyrdom of two other groups of Spanish Martyrs, the number of martyrs -- of 1934 (Asturias Rebellion) and of 1936 and 1937 (persecution of Catholics during the Spanish Civil War) -- to be beatified this year rises to 498.
Due to the great significance of the mass beatification (which is the result of 23 different causes, carefully studied for decades in Spain and in Rome), the Spanish episcopate asked the Holy Father to allow the ceremony to take place in Rome, as the measures taken by Pope Benedict at the beginning of his pontificate exceptionally allow. The petition was granted and the beatification ceremony will be held on October 28, 2007 (Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the calendar which all the Martyrs knew, a feast which had been established by the very Pope reigning at the time of their glorious martyrdom).
The entire list of 498 martyrs is available here and includes several names already mentioned by us in the past, also including Bishops Narciso Estenaga Echevarría, of Ciudad Real, and Cruz Laplana y Laguna, of Cuenca, as well as some of the most famous martyrs of the greatest massacre of Catholics in the 20th Century (Paracuellos de Jarama), the Augustinians of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (included in the Cause for Beatification 13).
Due to the great significance of the mass beatification (which is the result of 23 different causes, carefully studied for decades in Spain and in Rome), the Spanish episcopate asked the Holy Father to allow the ceremony to take place in Rome, as the measures taken by Pope Benedict at the beginning of his pontificate exceptionally allow. The petition was granted and the beatification ceremony will be held on October 28, 2007 (Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the calendar which all the Martyrs knew, a feast which had been established by the very Pope reigning at the time of their glorious martyrdom).
The entire list of 498 martyrs is available here and includes several names already mentioned by us in the past, also including Bishops Narciso Estenaga Echevarría, of Ciudad Real, and Cruz Laplana y Laguna, of Cuenca, as well as some of the most famous martyrs of the greatest massacre of Catholics in the 20th Century (Paracuellos de Jarama), the Augustinians of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (included in the Cause for Beatification 13).
