Papal praise for martyrs of Guatemala, Spain
November 05, 2026
Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to martyrs in Guatemala and Spain who will be beatified on November 7.
Venerable Augusto Rafael Ramírez Monasterio was martyred in 1983; Francisco González de Córdova and 79 companions were martyred in the Spanish province of Santander (now known as Cantabria) in 1936 and 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Santander is also the name of the province’s capital; the beatification will take place there.
“Next Saturday, November 7, two beatifications will be celebrated,” Pope Leo said at the conclusion of his November 4 general audience. “In Antigua, Guatemala, Augusto Rafael Ramirez Monasterio, a priest of the Order of Friars Minor killed in hatred of the faith in 1983, will be beatified, while in Santander, Spain, Francisco González de Córdova, diocesan priest, and seventy-nine companions, priests, seminarians and lay people, who during the Spanish persecution of the last century were not afraid to shed their blood for the love of Christ, will be beatified.”
“These new Blesseds make visible a new piece of the ‘immense multitude’ of the Lord’s friends,” the Pope added. (Tassello, the word the Pontiff used for “piece,” can refer to a piece of a mosaic.)
The Vatican omitted the Pontiff’s words from its English translation of his remarks.
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