Christian World | Cardinal Marcello Semeraro beatified 80 Spanish Civil War martyrs, including 67 priests, at Santander's cathedral on Saturday on behalf of Pope Leo XIV

ACW | November 7, 2026 — Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, beatified 80 martyrs of the Spanish Civil War at the cathedral in Santander, Spain, on Saturday, Vatican News reported.

The group, Francisco González de Córdova and 79 companions, includes 67 priests, three Carmelite religious, three seminarians and seven laypeople, according to Vatican News. Semeraro presided on behalf of Pope Leo XIV.

They were killed during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Vatican News said. Some drowned at sea, some disappeared aboard the prison ship Alfonso Pérez and others died in a concentration camp.

In his homily, delivered in Spanish, Semeraro called holiness the "common vocation of every baptized person" and said the new Blesseds "do not belong to the past." Evil "has no power to extinguish God's mercy, because his love is stronger," he said.

Background: Semeraro recalled Pope Leo's general audience on Wednesday, Nov. 4, when the pope spoke of the "vast multitude of the Lord's friends," Vatican News reported. ACW covered that audience: Pope Leo says politics that tends people's wounds gives hope.

Why it matters: Each beatification "adds a piece to a mosaic that is still unfinished," Semeraro said. Saturday's rite honors 80 priests, religious and laypeople who, according to Vatican News, were killed for their faith during the Spanish Civil War.

ACW will continue to follow this story.

Source: Vatican News — Cardinal Semeraro: Blessed Santander martyrs show our vocation to holiness

Photo: Vatican News — image of the 80 new Spanish Blesseds