Saint Jaime Hilario Barbal

Manuel Barbal Cosan was born on 2 January 1898 in Enviny, a small town at the foot of the
Pyrenees in northern Spain. Known for his serious nature, he was only 12 years old when,
with the blessing of his devout and hardworking parents, he entered the minor seminary of
the diocese of Urgel. He soon developed hearing problems and was advised to return
home. Convinced that God was calling him, he was overjoyed in 1917 to learn that the
Institute of the Brothers would accept him in the novitiate at Irun, Spain. After sixteen years
in various teaching assignments, his hearing problems forced him to abandon the
classroom to work in the garden at the house of formation at San José, in Tarragona.

In July of 1936 he was at Mollerosa on his way to visit his family at Enviny when the civil
war broke out. Recognized as a Brother, he was arrested and jailed. In December he was
transferred to Tarragona and confined in a prison ship with several other brothers. On 15
January 1937 he was given a summary trial. Though he could have been freed by claiming
to be only a gardener, he insisted on his identity as a religious and thereby sealed his
doom. He was brought to the cemetery known as the Mount of Olives on 18 January to face
execution. His last words to his assailants were “To die for Christ, my young friends, is to
live.” When two volleys failed to meet their mark, the soldiers dropped their rifles and fled in
panic. The commander, shouting a gross insult, fired five shots at close range and the
victim fell at his feet.

Born January 2, 1898

Entered the novitiate February 24, 1917
Martyred January 18, 1937
Beatified April 29, 1990
Canonized November 21, 1999

Raised in a pious and hardworking family near the Pyrenees mountains. Entered the
seminary at age 12, but when his hearing began to fail in his teens, he was sent home.
Joined the Brothers of the Christian Schools at age 19, entering the noviate on 24
February1917 at Irun, Spain, taking the name Jaime Hilario. Exceptional teacher and
catechist, he believed strongly in the value of universal education, especially for the
poor. However, his hearing problems grew worse, and in the early 1930s, he was forced
to retire fromteaching, and began work in the garden at the LaSalle house at San Jose,
Tarragona, Spain.
Imprisoned in July 1936 at Mollerosa, Spain when the Spanish Civil War broke out and
religious were swept from the street. Transferred to Tarragona in December, then
confined on a prison ship with some other religious. Convicted on 15 January 1937 of
being a Christian brother. Two rounds of volley fire from a firing squad did not kill him,
possibly because some of soldiersintentionally shot wide; their commander then
murdered Jaime with five shots at close range. First of the 97 LaSalle Brothers killed in
Catalunia, Spain during the Spanish Civil War to be recognized as a martyr.

Saint Mutien-Marie Wiaux

Louis Wiaux, the third of six children, was born in a small village in French-speaking
Belgium where almost everyone was a devout practicing Catholic. His father was a
blacksmith, while his mother helped to run a small cafe in part of the family home, where no
rough language was allowed and where the evening of Belgian beer and card playing
always concluded with the recitation of the rosary.

Louis proved neither physically nor emotionally suited to his father’s trade; he was
convinced that the Lord was calling him to a different kind of forge. No sooner had he met
the Brothers in a nearby school than he determined to enter the novitiate at Namur. After
two years, teaching elementary classes, Brother Mutien was assigned to the boarding
school at Malonne where he would spend the next fifty-eight years. He had difficulties at
first coping with the demands of both teaching and prefecting. He was rescued by the
Brother in charge of the courses in music and art, at the time an important feature of the
curriculum. From then on Brother Mutien was not only an effective teacher of those
subjects, a vigilant prefect in the school yard, and a catechist in the nearby parish, but a
tremendous influence on the students by his patience and evident piety.

He was known to spend whatever time he could before the tabernacle or at the grotto of
Our Lady. Among the Brothers, it was said that he had never been seen violating even the
smallest points in their Rule. After his death at Malonne, his fame began to spread through
Belgium, where many miracles were attributed to him. His relics may be venerated in
Malonne at the shrine built in his honor after his canonization.

Born at Mellet, Belgium March 20, 1841

Entered the novitiate April 7, 1856
Died January 30, 1917
Beatified October 30, 1977
Canonized December 10, 1989

Christian Brother praised as a model teacher. He was born the son of a blacksmith in
Mellet, Belgium, in 1841. Entering the Christian Brothers, he changed his baptismal
name, Louis, to Mutien. In 1859 he was assigned to St. Bertuin's School in Maloone,
where he taught for fifty-eight years. Mutien specialized in art and music. He was
canonized in 1989 by Pope John Paul II.

Saint Miguel Febres Cordero

Francisco Febres Cordero was born into a family that has always been prominent in
Ecuadorian politics. Crippled from birth, he had to overcome family opposition to realize his
vocation to be a lay religious, the first native of Ecuador to be received into the Institute.

Brother Miguel was a gifted teacher from the start and a diligent student. When he was not
quite twenty years old, he published the first of his many books, a Spanish grammar that
soon became a standard text. In time his research and publications in the field of literature
and linguistics put him in touch with scholars all over the world and he was granted
membership in the National Academies of Ecuador and Spain. Despite high academic
honors, teaching remained his first priority, especially his classes in religion and for the
young men he prepared for first communion. His students admired his simplicity, his
directness, his concern for them, and the intensity of his devotion to the Sacred Heart and
the Virgin Mary.

In 1907 he passed through New York on his way to Belgium, where he had been called to
translate texts into Spanish for the use of the Brothers recently exiled from France. His
health, always delicate, did not easily adjust to the rigors of the European climate.
Transferred to the junior novitiate at Premia del Mar in Spain, during a revolutionary
outbreak in 1909 he supervised a dramatic evacuation of his young charges to the safety of
Barcelona across the bay. Shortly after they were able to return, he contracted pneumonia
and he died at Premia, leaving behind a remarkable reputation as scholar, teacher, and
saint.

Born at Cuenca, Ecuador November 7, 1854

Entered the novitiate March 24, 1868
Died February 9, 1910
Beatified October 30, 1977
Canonized October 21, 1984
Saint (Brother) Miguel (1854-1910) was a member of the Order of the Institute of the Brothers of
the Christian Schools. He was born Francisco Febres-Cordero Muńóz on November 7, 1854 at
Cuenca, Ecuador and died at Premiŕ de Mar, Spain on February 9, 1910.

Blessed Martyrs of Valencia

The five blessed to whom we dedicate these pages were members of the Institute of the
Brothers of the Christian Schools. Their only concern was to follow Jesus in the vocation to
which he had called them: to gain salvation by educating young people, teaching them to
live as Christians.

When religious persecution began in Spain, they were working peacefully in the educational
institutions in the Lasallian District of Barcelona. Because of the religious persecution there,
they fled to Valencia in order to continue their ministry of education. It was in Valencia that
the Lord called them to a radical witness. When they were found to be religious, they were
arrested and executed.

Martyrs are a sign of the Church, the Body of Christ, which continues being persecuted and
condemned to death in her members, but these martyrs keep their sights fixed on the
glorious dawn of the resurrection.

This is the lesson that the Martyrs give to us, yesterday and today. We should be ready to
imitate their generosity.

Brothers Florencio Martín, Bertrán Francisco, Ambrosio León, Elías Julián, Honorato
Andrés, and Father Leonardo O. Buera, chaplain of the Bonanova School, gave their lives
for being faithful to their roles as ministers and ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

Even though they knew that affirming their state as religious would lead them to death, they
did not hesitate in admitting their faith in Jesus and the fact that they belonged to the
Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

These five Brothers, now newly beatified, had no other job than that of following Jesus in
the vocation to which He had called them: To bring salvation to the young and children, that
is to say, to educate young people and children entirely in a Christian manner, so that they
might achieve their full potential as human beings and as Christians.
With their beatification, their names will increase the number of saints and blessed among
the Lasallian world. Beginning with St. John Baptist de La Salle, our Founder, and then later
with Brother Salomon Leclerq, the first Brother martyr during the French Revolution, they
ensure that fidelity to the Lord along the path of the integrated education of young men and
women, boys and girls, constitutes a Gospel journey.

Young person, teacher, Lasallian partner, parent, this message invites us also to devote
our lives to the Kingdom, based on our chosen lifestyles and the professional activities we
carry out. The cause of the Kingdom compels our lives to acquire the religious dimension
which is a source for happiness and continued strength, even when facing life’s most
difficult tests.

Along with our newly beatified Lasallians we remember many other martyrs whose lives
were violently snatched away for the sole reason that they were proclaimers of Jesus
Christ. We recall our martyrs from France, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Vietnam,
Guatemala, Colombia, and Spain. We also venerate the memory of so many Brothers and
Lasallian partners who devoted their lives in a gradual way, day after day, bit by bit like a
piece of chalk on the blackboard in the anonymity of daily fidelity.

And the familiar voice of our Founder resounds in our ears and in our heart, when he tells
us: “The only thanks you should expect for instructing children, especially the poor, is injury,
insult, calumny, persecution, and even death. This is the recompense of the saints and of
apostolic men, as it was for Our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Meditation 155.3)

Beatified March 11, 2001.

Saint Benildus Romancon

Pierre Romançon was born in the village of Thuret in south-central France. He was so far
ahead of his classmates in elementary school that when he was only fourteen years old the
Brothers engaged him as a substitute teacher. Despite the objection of his parents, who
wanted to keep him at home, and the reluctance of the superiors, who thought he was too
short of stature, he was finally admitted to the novitiate. From 1821 to 1841 he taught
successfully in the network of elementary schools conducted by the Brothers out of the
administrative center at Clermont-Ferrand.
In 1841 he was appointed Director of a school that was opening in Saugues, an isolated
village on a barren plateau in southern France. For the next twenty years he worked quietly
and effectively as teacher and principal to educate the boys in the village and some from
the neighboring farms, many of whom were in their teens and had never been to school
before.

Small as he was, he was known as a strict but fair disciplinarian. In time the little school
became the center of the social and intellectual life of the village, with evening classes for
the adults and tutoring for the less gifted students. Brother Benilde’s extraordinary religious
sense was evident to everyone: at Mass with the students in the parish church, teaching
catechism, preparing boys for first communion, visiting and praying with the sick, and
rumors of near-miraculous cures. He was especially effective in attracting religious
vocations. At his death more than 200 Brothers and an impressive number of priests had
been his students at Saugues. At his beatification, Pope Pius XII stressed that his
sanctification was attained by enduring “the terrible daily grind” and by “doing common
things in an uncommon way.”

Born at Thuret, France June 14, 1805

Entered the novitiate February 10, 1820
Died August 13,1862
Beatified April 4, 1948
Canonized October 29, 1967

Saint Solomon Leclercq

Once the monarchy had been overthrown early in the French Revolution, the next target
was the Church. In 1790 the Civil Constitution of the Clergy gave the state complete control
over the Church in France. In order to continue to function, priests and religious were forced
to take an oath to support the constitution. Most of the Brothers refused and so were forced
gradually to abandon their schools and communities. Eventually the Institute was deprived
altogether of legal status in France.

Brother Solomon was secretary to Brother Agathon, the Superior General, after having
been a teacher, director and bursar. He always showed a great love for people and a great
attachment to his work. Having refused to take an oath, he lived alone in Paris in secrecy.
We still have many of his letters to his family. The last one is dated August 15, 1792. That
very day he was arrested and imprisoned in the Carmelite monastery, which had become a
prison, together with several bishops and priests. On September 2, almost all the prisoners
were killed by sword in the monastery garden. He was beatified on October 17, 1926,
together with 188 of his fellow martyrs. He was the first one of our martyrs and also the first
Brother to be beatified.

His feast is celebrated on September 2 with the other Brother martyrs of the hulks of
Rochefort, who died 2 or 3 years later.

Saint Brother Solomon (Nicholas Leclerq)

Born at Boulogne, France November 14, 1745
Entered the novitiate March 25, 1767
Martyred September 2, 1792
Beatified October 17, 1926

19/01/2011: Diocesan Investigation (Caracas) “super miro”

03/03/2016: Medical Board
04/05/2016: Congress of Theologians
03/05/2016: Ordinary of the Cardinals and Bishops
05/09/2016: Decree on Martyrdom
10/16/2016: Canonization

Blessed Martyrs of the Rochefort

On Sunday, October 1, 1995, His Holiness John Paul II beatified 64 martyrs: the priest John
Baptist Souzy’s group (the Vicar General of La Rochelle), who, along with 63 companions,
died as victims of suffering for the faith during the French Revolution.

They are called «martyrs of the hulks of Rochefort» because of the place where they were
held as prisoners. The name hulk was given to the old boats ordinarily used as storage
ships, hospitals or prison ships.

There were two boats that served as prisons: “The Two Associates” and the “Washington”
and these were based in Rochefort, where the river Charente emptied, in the department
(county) of Rochelle.
There were in all 827 priest and religious prisoners, the majority of whom had refused to
swear the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which would be considered an
apostasy of the faith.

Of the 827 prisoners, 542 of them died during the months of captivity in the pontoons: from
April 11, 1794 to February 7, 1795. All had to endure terrible suffering and vexations for the
faith and they died as a result of maltreatment. The 285 survivors were freed on February
12, 1795, and they were able to return to their places of origin. Some of them left written
testimony about the heroic examples of their martyred companions.

Among the prisoners of the hulks were seven Brothers of the Christian Schools: Roger,
Leon, Uldaric, Pierre-Christophe, Donat-Joseph, Avertin and Jugon. The last three survived
and were liberated on February 12, 1795. The first four died in prison but in the group of the
beati only Brothers Roger, Leon and Uldaric are included. Information about the fourth,
Brother Pierre-Christophe, was unavailable and so he was not included in the group.

Blessed Brother Roger (Pierre-Sulpice-Christophe Faverge)

Born in Orléans, France, July 25, 1745
Entered the Novitiate in 1767

Blessed Brother Uldaric (Jean-Baptiste Guillaume)

Born in Fraisans, France, February 1, 1755
Entered the Novitiate October 16, 1785

Blessed Brother Léon (Jean Mopinot)

Born in Reims, France, September 12,1724
Entered the Novitiate January 14, 1744

Martyred in 1794
Beatified on October 1, 1995

Blessed Scubilion Rousseau

As a devout young man in his native village in Burgundy, Jean Bernard Rousseau was
serving as a catechist when he was introduced to the Brothers, who had just opened a
school in a nearby town. He entered the Paris novitiate in 1822.
After ten years in elementary schools throughout France, Brother Scubilion left France in
1833 to dedicate the remaining thirty-four years of his life to the enslaved natives on the
island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Remembered as the “catechist of the slaves,” he
inaugurated evening classes for them, which were well attended, even after a long day of
exhausting labor. He devised special programs and techniques, suited to their needs and
abilities, in order to teach the essentials of Christian doctrine and morality, and prepare
them to receive the sacraments. He won them over by his kindly manner and his respect for
them.

After the emancipation of the slaves in 1848, he continued to care for them and to help
them adapt to their new life of freedom and responsibility. In the last years of his life, despite
failing health, he assisted the local pastor in visiting the sick, winning over sinners,
encouraging vocations, and even effecting what seemed to be miraculous cures. At his
death he was venerated everywhere on the island as a saint.

Born in Annay la-Côte, France March 21, 1797

Entered the novitiate December 24, 1822
Died on the Island of Reunion April 13, 1867
Beatified May 2, 1989

Saint Martyrs of Turon

Saint Cirilo Bertrán (José Sanz Tejedor)

Saint Marciano José (Filomeno López López)
Saint Julián Alfredo (Vilfrido Fernández Zapico)
Saint Victoriano Pío (Claudio Bernabé Cano)
Saint Benjamín Julián (Vicente Alonso Andrés)
Saint Augusto Andrés (Ramón Martín Fernández)
Saint Benito de Jesús (Héctor Valdivielso Sáez)
Saint Aniceto Adolfo (Manuel Seco Gutiérrez)
Saint Inocencio de la Inmaculada Canoure, CP (Manuel Canoura Arnau)

In 1934 Turón, a coal-mining town in the Asturias Province in Northwestern Spain, was the
center of anti-government and anticlerical hostility in the years prior to the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War. The Brothers’ school was an irritant to the radicals in charge of the town
because of the religious influence it exerted on the young. The Brothers were known to defy
the ban on teaching religion and they openly escorted their students to Sunday Mass. On
the First Friday of October, the authorities broke into the Brothers’ house on the pretext that
arms had been hidden there. Father Inocencio, a Passionist, who had come the night
before, was preparing to say Mass for the Brothers. They and their chaplain were arrested,
detained over the weekend without trial, and then in the middle of the night were marched
out to the cemetery where they were summarily shot. Brother Cirilo, the Director, was 46
years old and Brother Marciano, the cook, was 39. Brother Julián was 32 and all the rest
were in their twenties. Aniceto, the youngest at 22, was still in triennial vows. They were
arrested, detained, and executed as a community, victims of the hatred and violence
against the Church, witnessed by their death to the faith they so courageously professed
and so effectively communicated to their students.

Saint Cirilo Bertrán (José Sanz Tejedor)

Bron in Lerma (Burgos), Spain, March 20, 1888
Entered the novitiate on October 23, 1906

Saint Marciano José (Filomeno López y López)

Born in El Pedregal (Guadalajara), Spain, November 15, 1900
Entered the novitiate on September 20, 1916

Saint Julián Alfredo (Vilfrido Fernández Zapico)

Born in Cifuentes de Rueda (León), Spain, December 24, 1903
Entered the novitiate on February 4, 1926

Saint Victoriano Pío (Claudio Bernabé Cano)

Born in San Millan de Lora (Borgos), Spain, July 7, 1905
Entered the novitiate on August 30, 1921

Saint Benjamín Julián (Vicente Alonso Andrés)

Born in Jamarillo de la Fuente (Burgos), Spain, October 27, 1908
Entered the novitiate on August 29, 1924

Saint Augusto Andrés (Román Martín Fernández)

Born in Santander, Spain, May 6, 1910
Entered the novitiate on February 3, 1926
Saint Benito de Jesús (Héctor Valdivieso Sáez)
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 31, 1910
Entered the novitiate on August 7, 1926

Saint Anicet Adolfo (Manuel Seco Gutiérrez)

Born in Celada Marlantes (Santander), Spain, October 4, 1912
Entered the novitiate on September 6, 1928

Saint Inocencio de la Immaculada,CP (Manuel Canoure Arnau)

Born in Cecilia del Valle de Oro (Lugo), Spain, March 10, 1887
Ordained on September 20, 1920

Martyred in Spain on October 9, 1934

Beatified April 29, 1990
Canonized November 21, 1999

Blessed Arnold Reche

Jules-Nicolas Rèche was born into a poor family living in Landroff in the province of
Lorraine. He left school at an early age to work as a stable-boy, a coachman, and finally as
a teamster for a local construction company. Even as a young man he was known among
his fellow workers for his piety and his self-discipline. He first met the Brothers while
attending evening classes in their school and asked to be admitted into the congregation.

He taught for fourteen years at the boarding school on the Rue de Venise in Reims. Despite
the demands of a full teaching schedule he managed by private study to master theology,
mathematics, science and agriculture, which he taught to small groups of advanced
students. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he worked with other Brothers to care
for the medical and spiritual needs of the wounded soldiers on both sides, for which he was
awarded the Bronze Cross. The intensity of his prayer life and his love for practices of
penance soon led the superiors to appoint him Director of Novices at Thillois. He won the
hearts of his young charges by his evident solicitude for their spiritual and professional
development.

There are stories of little miracles and cures, as well as his uncanny ability to discern their
inmost thoughts. Brother Arnold was known for his devotion to the Lord’s passion and for
his docility to the Holy Spirit who, as he often remarked, “strengthens a person’s heart.”
When the novitiate was moved to the new formation center at Courlancy near Reims in
1885, Brother Arnold was instrumental in having it dedicated to the Sacred Heart. He died
at age fifty-two with a reputation for sanctity, only a few months after his appointment as
Director General of Sacré Coeur.

Born at Landroff, France September 2, 1838

Entered the novitiate December 23, 1862
Died at Reims, France October 23, 1890
Beatified November 1, 1987

Blessed Martyrs of Almeria

Brother José Cecilio Rodríguez González

Brother Amalio Zariquiegui Mendoza
Brother Valerio Bernardo Herrero Martínez
Brother Edmigio Primo Rodríguez
Brother Evencio Ricardo Alonso Uyarra
Brother Aurelio María Villalón Acebrón
Brother Teodomiro Joaquin Sáiz Sáiz

Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the Popular Front in the
Province of Almería gave orders to arrest all enemies of the revolution, especially priests
and religious. Five of the Brothers were arrested at their school, two were taken prisoner in
the street while on their way to mail letters to their families. Along with many others,
including two bishops, these prisoners were confined in a series of makeshift prisons, where
they were subjected to privation, mistreatment and ridicule. On the night of August 29, the
two bishops, along with 15 others, were taken to an isolated spot where they were lined up
and shot. On the next night, 30 August, Brothers Edmigio, Amalio, and Valerio were taken
to the outskirts of Tabernas, where they were shot in the head and their bodies thrown into
a deep well. On 8 September, Brothers Evencio and Teodomiro were shot near the
roadside, where their bodies were left. Brothers Aurelio and José met a similar fate on
September 12, their bodies also thrown into a well. Bishops and Brothers alike were
condemned to death without trial for the crime of professing and teaching the Catholic faith.
Brother Edmigio (Isidoro Primo Rodríguez González)
Born at Adalia, Spain April 4, 1881
Entered the novitiate October 8, 1898

Brother Amalio (Justo Zariquiegui Mendoza)

Born at Salinas de Oro, Spain August 6, 1886
Entered the novitiate September 13, 1902

Brother Valerio Bernardo (Marciano Herrero Martínez)

Born at Porquera, Spain July 11, 1909
Entered the novitiate February 1, 1926

Brother Teodomiro Joaquín (Adrián Sáiz Sáiz)

Born at Puentedey, Spain September 8, 1907
Entered the novitiate August 15, 1923

Brother Evencio Ricardo (Eusebio Alonso Uyarra)

Born at Viloria, Spain March 5, 1907
Entered the novitiate February 2, 1923

Brother Aurelio María (Bienvenido Villalón Acebrón)

Born at Zafra de Záncara, Spain March 22, 1890
Entered the novitiate August 22, 1906

Brother José Cecilio (Bonifacio Rodríguez González)

Born 14 May 1885, in La Molina de Ubierna, Spain
Entered the novitiate November 21, 1901

Marrtyred in Spain, August-September 1936

Beatified October 10, 1993