20 Balearic Islands martyrs, slain during Spanish Civil War, beatified

October 19, 2026

Twenty diocesan priests slain by Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War were beatified on October 17.

The martyrdoms took place in 1936 on Ibiza and Formentera, two of the Balearic Islands. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints recounts:

In the context of the violent religious persecution that characterized Spain in the first half of the twentieth century, in the summer of 1936 the islands of Ibiza and Formentera fell under the control of the Republican forces, beginning a period of 37 days characterized by a violent revolutionary wave that aimed at the total eradication of the Catholic identity of the islands: all forms of worship were prohibited, the sacraments were banned and the churches suffered systematic looting and burning of furnishings and sacred images. This epilogue culminated in the massacre involving these martyrs.

“The group of martyrs beatified today is numerous and their earthly life was recalled at the beginning of this rite. I will only mention the leader of the group, the priest Juan Torres Torres,” Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, preached at the beatification Mass at the Cathedral of the Virgin of the Snows in Ibiza.

“He was 24 years old and had been ordained for just two months when he was killed; his body was thrown into the sea,” the prelate continued. “His story strikes us for the brevity of a ministry that had just begun and was abruptly interrupted, but it also reminds us that the fruitfulness of a vocation is not measured by its duration, but by the fidelity with which it is lived and by the offering of oneself to Christ.”

 

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Further information:

• Semeraro: fedeli nell’amore ogni giorno, sull’esempio dei martiri di Ibiza (Vatican News, 10/17/26)
• Juan Torres Torres e 19 Compagni (Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi)