CENTRAL DOSSIER
THE MEMORY OF OUR MARTYRS
Andrea Tesssarolo, scj
1. The Beatification of 233 Spanish martyrs
This must be a feast day for everyone. Every beatification is a sign that the word of God is always current and effective in the life of believers. And through these signs the Spirit of God, in time and at the opportune moment, offers us patterns of life... faithful to Christ, strong in faith, lived in charity.
For all believers, therefore, a beatification must be a reason for festivity. But on this occasion, for the Dehonian Family, there are special reasons. In the first place, for the great number of martyrs proclaimed “blessed”; a beatification which is the first at the conclusion of the Great Jubilee and the first of the new millennium which is just commencing. But above all it a reason of festivity because among those 233 martyrs there is also a “Priest of the Sacred Heart”, JUAN MARIA DE LA CRUZ, the first “Dehonian” raised to the honor of the altar.
To have one of our brethren become a “saint” is an act of grace and stirs in us sentiments of gratitude and praise to the Lord. “This moment”, the Father General reminds us, “can revitalize, in the whole Dehonian Family, the awareness of the universal call to holiness and the importance of placing in the center of our life that strong and solid spirituality which characterizes the Dehonian vocation”.
2. The Persecution of the Church in Republican Spain
To understand the Spanish tragedy of 1936, and above all to understand the Church of Spain, which in those years suffered the most difficult persecution in its history, it is necessary to briefly recall the stages of the Republican government which had been initiated five years before. There could not be a sadder moment in their history than that beginning in 1931, because it also marks the start of the persecutions: at first in a covert way and then, from 1936, openly. From 1931, in fact, when communist and socialist and anarchist could act with the support of the communist government of Catalonia, everything related to the Church was burned down, sacked, destroyed: churches, seminaries, rectories, monasteries and convents, church furnishings, artistic treasures... 13 bishops, 4,184 priests, 2,365 religious brethren, 283 nuns and thousands of lay Catholics were killed.
The first victims were killed in the month of October 1934, during the so-called “revolution of the Asturie”, when 58 churches were burned down and 37 clergy murdered. They are called the martyrs of Turòn. This situation of hostility against the Church became fanatical persecution starting from July 18, 1936, that is, with the commencement of the conflict provoked by the revolt of General Franco’s National Front.
The gravity of this persecution was such that, already in the first months, the number of clergy tortured and killed reached incredible heights - 6,500 - with the total destruction of every sign or religious presence in the so-called “Red Zone”.
This figure includes the 233 martyrs beatified last March 11th. They are martyrs whose beatification was promoted by the diocese of Valencia; many of the priests and lay people came from this diocese, but there were also male and female religious from various other Institutes and Congregations that had experienced a certain relationship with the diocese.
This collective beatification of 233 martyrs of such varied extraction expresses the communion of the saints, as well as the ecclesiastical meaning of the unity of charisms within the Church. It is also a manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit which acts in every baptized person. It therefore seemed opportune to unite them all together in a single rite, the most numerous in the history of beatifications; higher even than that of Pius IX, in 1867, when he beatified 205 people martyred in Japan during the 16th and 17th centuries. This new group of martyrs is the first ones to be beatified in the Third Millennium, and the first spiritual fruit of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, during the course of which the respective canonical processes were concluded.
3. The Processes and the “Positio”
It is only right to emphasize that this beatification united 16 different processes, 14 of which were instituted by the Archdiocese of Valencia and cover a total of 226 people; one of these processes took place at the Curia of Barcelona (that of the Franciscan Friars) and another, concerning the layman Francisco Castelló Aleu, took place at the Curia of Lérida.
Every Order and Religious Congregation initiated the processes for their own members in Valencia, in the forties and fifties of the last century.
The Positio of each of these causes was elaborated according to rigorous, scientific criteria and synthesized a massive amount of material; more than sufficient to express an opinion on the martyrdom of these 233 heroes of the Catholic faith. In addition, thousands of documents from the Historical Archival Commission, instituted by the Archbishop of Valencia, were inserted. These emphasized that the shedding of blood was the culmination of an exemplary practice of Christian virtues and an intense preparation to the heroic witness of Christ...
4. Martyr est qui pro Christo mortem patitur
These martyrs were arrested because they refused to accept a tradition loaded with atheistic inhumanity. As to the “odium Fidei” of the persecutors, all the oral and documentary evidence converged to agree in declaring explicitly that the motive for their arrest, and for their being sentenced without previous trial, was that they belonged to the Catholic Church; and that they were killed because of their pastoral and religious activity in the highly anti-religious and anti-clerical climate encouraged by the Spanish Republican directors. They were completely extraneous to the political struggles and to the reigning ideologies. With reference to the victims we find that their virtuous life and their individual commitment to bear witness constituted the best proof of their suitability for martyrdom. In addition they offered no resistance to their executioners, seeing in everything the will of God. Following the example of the divine crucified they, in total adhesion to the divine will, pardoned everyone.
In conclusion, from the study of the Acts, the theological elements of martyrdom for all 233 new blesseds were found present.
5. Blessed Juan Maria de la Cruz “Priest of the Sacred Heart”
One of these 233 “causes” bore the name of “Mariano Garcia Méndez”, in religion “Juan Maria de la Cruz”. One of the brethren who followed his “cause” closely, has published a booklet on him entitled “The Accidental Saint”. Why?
In effect, if Fr. Juan Maria became a “martyr”, humanly speaking this is due to the completely fortuitous “chance-fact” that towards the end of July 1936 he happened to be passing through the streets of Valencia - he was disguised as a peasant to avoid the risk of being recognized as a priest. When he saw the churches being profaned and hooligans setting fire to sacred objects, he could not, with his impulsive temperament, retrain himself from uttering some phrases of protest.
One of the rebels heard him and immediately accused him saying: “But, then you’re a reactionary too”.Fr. Juan responded to this by saying: “I am a priest”.
At these words he was immediately arrested and taken to the Model Prison of Valencia, together with many other priests, religious and lay people. He was put in cell number 476, on the fourth gallery.
Imprisoned with him was also the prison plumber, who leaves this witness of Fr. Juan: “He always behaved as a most honorable priest. If he was in the yard and he heard the Hours sounding he recited the prayers with whoever might be there. Something I saw him do many times. At other times I myself saw him praying in the cell. He was never discourteous with anyone”.
Another one of his fellow prisoners in the Valencia jail was the Redemptorist Religious, Fr. Tomàs Vega. He too wrote various comments about Fr Juan; one example: “In the afternoon every priest normally joined up with a group of prisoners to recite the Holy Rosary. Fr. Juanito had a particular group, but he did not only say the Rosary with them, he also led them in other prayers and did spiritual reading with them. Normally he went from one group to another when the communal prayers were finished, encouraging everyone in virtue and in the love of God. He was truly fervent.
“One day, when he came down into the yard, he told me that he had had a great joy: that morning he had received Jesus in the Sacrament. A professor from the Seminary had come into the prison in that period and he had brought the Holy Sacrament with him. Fr. Juanito insisted so much that he finally obtained Holy Communion. Indeed, more, he succeeded in getting the professor to leave him the Holy Sacrament for the entire day, and for him that was a celestial day
“After a month of imprisonment” Fr. Tomás continues, “they locked us in our cells and we could not accompany him any longer. But he left all of us with a profound memory of his holiness and virtue...
“A few days later we learned that he had left the prison. We did not know however that he had left for martyrdom. He was one of the first people from the Model Prison of Valencia who gave his life for the Lord and for Spain. Happy is he who receives the palm of martyrdom. Happy is the Congregation which is today glorified by such a supreme martyr”.
Fr. Zicke, who knew him very well, describes the spiritual life of the new blessed in the following way: “His piety shone with extraordinary love for the Most Holy Sacrament and for the Holy Virgin. ...The favorite theme of his teaching and instruction was the merciful love of the Sacred Heart. He used to visit the sanctuaries of the Virgin at the cost of great sacrifices. He was extremely scrupulous in reciting the breviary. ...In celebrating the Holy Mass he took more time than normal, particularly at the moment of the Consecration. ...On many occasions he manifested his zeal for the glory of God”.