THE DOMINICAN MARTYRS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (1936)

THE DOMINICAN MARTYRS OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR I

BLESSED BUENAVENTURA GARCÍA PAREDES (1866-1936)
LXXVIII master of the Order and Successor of St Dominic[1]

Birth and childhood
Brother Bonaventure of St Louis Bertrand García Paredes[2] was born and baptized on 19 April 1866 in Castañedo de Valdés, Luarca (Asturias) of very pious parents, Serapio García Paredes and Maria Pallasá, whose father came from French Navarre; he received an excellent religious formation in his family, and while young he showed signs of his future ecclesiastical vocation: he had a brother who was a priest; as an adolescent he helped his father tend sheep, he did his elementary schooling in his home town and in the parochial school[3], at the advise of a Dominican friar. Fr. Esteban Sacrest, who had given a mission in his town. He attended this school for a year, and then entered the Apostolic School of the Spanish Dominicans at Corias (Asturias), which he attended for two years, after which his teachers thought he was ready to enter the novitiate. However, for reasons of ill health, on the advice of the superior, he went home. Having recovered, he instead entered the Novitiate at Ocaña (Toledo), belonging to the Holy Rosary Province.

Entry and formation in the Order
He received the habit on the feast of St Rose of Lima, 30 August 1883. The Novitiate College of St. Dominic of Ocãna was the only formation House of the Order after the desamortization and the suppression of the religious Orders in the XIX century. Since its incorporation to the missionary province of the Holy Rosary, its cloisters had formed a generation of great men, apostles, missionaries, saints and martyrs to the Far East. The Priory still breathed the fervour and memory of these great men when Bl. Bonaventura entered the Novitiate. Thus by no mere coincidence that during the novitiate he was inculcated with the same love for the Order and deep esteem for the foreign missions[4] He made his simple profession on 31 August 1884, his solemn profession on 8 September 1887.

After his profession, he continued to live in the Novitiate College to study Philosophy, then moved on to follow the Theology courses at the Royal Monastery of St Thomas in Avila; he studied the text of the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas directly. Having completed the third year of theology, he was sent to the University of Salamanca to study Civil law, which he continued to study together with Philosophy and Literature at the universities of Valencia and Madrid. In Salamanca he gained the bachelor degree in Civil Law on 29 January 1891, and in the same year, on 25 July, he was ordained priest by Msgr. Juan Muñoz y Herrera, Bishop of Avila and great friend of the Order. He celebrated his first Mass on the feast of Blessed Mannes.

In both Valencia and Madrid he gained the highest Academic marks. At the Central University of Madrid he was awarded the Doctorate in Philosophy and Letters on 30 June 1897. The following year, on 20 June, he was awarded the Doctorate in Civil Law.

Professor and superior
Bl. Bonaventura arrived in the Philippines in 1899, at a time when Spain had just lost the colony to the Philippine insurrection and immediately fell under American occupation. The Church and the religious Orders as part of the Old regime were maligned many of the missionaries were still in captivity in the far flung missions the Province was administering. The very presence of the Order in the islands seem to be at stake. A new century, a new regime and social order and a new start.

In Manila he took the examinations and obtained the degree of Lector, which opened the door allowing him to teach in the Order. In 1900 he was awarded the chair of political and administrative law at the University of Santo Tomás. He started to publish articles, especially in the Catholic daily Libertas, which he edited for a short time, from 21 April 1901 till the summer of that year. He defended the celebrated case of Msgr. Bernardino Nozaleda OP (1844-1927)[5]. He also successfully defended the rights of the San José Seminary and its properties before the Supreme Court in the Philippines.

In 1901 He was elected Conventual Prior of the Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás in Avila. Confirmed to the office on 31 July, he took office on 4 October. He was much esteemed by the people of Avila, as well as by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Having ended his term as Prior, he remained for a time in that priory, and gave lectures on Canon Law in the Conciliar Seminary. He continued the Historia Ecclesiástica of Fr Francisco Rivas, published in three volumes in Madrid in 1877; he completed this work by covering the period of Leo XIII’s pontificate (1877-1903).
He was tasked by the Province to found a College in Santa Maria de Nieva (Segovia). In 1904, this school open to children of the locality and the surrounding villages and began to flourish. In 1910 he was elected Prior of St Dominic of Ocaña and for this reason he took part in the Provincial Chapter in Manila. During this Chapter he was elected Prior Provincial on 14 May 1910.

At the helm of the Holy Rosary Province
Blessed Bonaventure became the Prior Provincial of the biggest Province of the Order then: with around six hundred friars dispersed in the many countries in East Asia and in Europe.

It was time when the Province had to live with the reality of losing almost all the ministries in the Philippines (except those in Manila); the situation in Spain was nothing better either. The province was in need of a change, a process of reorganization and re-structuring that would ensure it could continue its missionary work in the Far East.

During his term of office, his chief concern was the renewal of the missionary spirit of the Province by injecting new life to the ministries. With the reduced presence in the Philippines, the missions became the chief concern and priority of the Province. More than once, he visitated the immense missionary territories of the Province in the Far East: China, Japan, and Vietnam and made personal contact with the brother missionaries assigned there, helping them as much as he could. Under his leadership, the province began to open new institutions in the missions, hospitals, hospices, orphanages, schools for the formation of children and youth, he greatly promoted the establishment of Colleges in Fuzhou, (Fujian, China), and in Taipei (Formosa).

Not forgetting that the Province has an important role in strengthening and renewing the whole Order, and ever mindful that missionary work was part of the Dominican ideal, He generously shared this ideal and work with other Provinces by handing over missionary territories of the Holy Rosary Province in China to the Province of Teutonia, and in Vietnam to the Province of Lyon.

Conscious of the historic commitment of the Province with the suppressed Provinces in Spain, by 1912, through his initiative, he began the process of restoring the Province of Aragon ceding the Priory of Valencia, (which then belonged to the Holy Rosary Province).

In October 1917 he started the review Misiones Dominicanas, wanting it to reflect how the Kingdom of Christ was spreading in the immense territories given in the care of his province, and to let be known the labours of the missionaries as well as the fervour of new christians. In the first issue, St Dominic was presented as the model for missionaries.

He planned and reorganized the Provincial Curia in Manila. In 1911, to commemorate the 300 years the the foundation of the University of Santo Tomás, he bought 50,000 square metres of property in Sulucan, outside Manila to expand the University of St Thomas, and laid the first stone of the new buildings.

Not forgetting the formation of the brethren and in accordance to the mandate of the 1910 Provincial Chapter, in 1912 he set up the Apostolic school at La Mejorada (Olmedo, Valladolid) and extended the presence of the Province as far as the United States of America[6].

On completing the four years’ term of office as provincial, but by express wish of Pope Saint Pius X and the approval of the Holy See, he remained in office. Ending his term of office in 1917, he was tasked to supervise the foundation of the Convent of the Holy Rosary in Madrid (Conde de Peñalver Street, at that time known as Torrijos Street n.28) and was appointed its first Superior.

For nine years he was engaged in the apostolate and the guidance of souls, both of lay people as well as women religious. Among those who turned to him for advice there was Antonio Maura, who was for five times President of the Spanish government.

Master of the Order
During the elective General Chapter of 1926 celebrated in the Priory of Saint Dominic of Ocaña, He was elected as the Master of the Order. The election took place on 22 May 1926. During the speech delivered at the Chapter, the diffinitor of the Province of the Holy Rosary, Br José Noval, delineated the person whom the Chapter should elect as Master: that he should be outstanding in knowledge, a true master able to show the path for the attaining the truth and preaching it; he should also shine in the virtue of regular and apostolic life. Finally he should possess a prudence tested by experience of government, for – to rule souls is the art of arts.

The four Spanish Prior Provincials at the Chapter went to Madrid to announce to him of his election and to bring him to the Chapter Hall. On reaching Ocaña that same evening, he prostrated himself on the floor before the assembly and in tears begged the Chapter Fathers to free him from the office. Fr. Luis G. Alonso Getino, the Prior Provincial of Spain, in the name of everyone, encouraged him to trust in Divine Providence and in the help of the Most Holy Virgin of the Rosary, of St Dominic, and the martyrs of the Holy Rosary Province. In the name of the chapter and the Order he asked to accept and give the blessing of St. Dominic to everyone present. In humility he did as he was told and immediately took oath to serve faithfully the brethren[7].

The famous historian Br Vicente Beltrán de Heredia said: ‘I feel devotion, above all for Father Paredes whom I remember gratefully because when he was elected General with my vote also, I saw just how far his humility reached when he did not accept the office. I do not forget those ten minutes of resistance, when having been elected General they had to convince him and he gave such examples of humility that one of the assisting Fathers, Br Getino, rose to utter some words of encouragement and help him, so that an Austro-Hungarian Father, Br Cornelius Boller[8], said: “Never in my life have I ever been present at such a beautiful scene’[9].

Letter to the Order
In his first letter, he asked for sincere cooperation and the help of prayers, because these were difficult times even of persecution. The First World War (1914-1918), among others, left some Provinces desolate or marked by serious wounds: ‘How much shedding of blood!’, he said. He intended with the help of God to remedy things, it being his strong desire, without sparing any sacrifice. He wanted “an Order robust in its organic constitution, supernatural by its sanctity of life and regular observance, known for the reliability and beauty of its doctrine, untiring in the apostolic ministry, open to missions, with a taste for the spiritual life” – in veiled form one might note an allusion to the great work of the Servant of God Juan G. Arintero[10] - engaged in an habitual and permanent way in the teaching of sacred doctrine, in constant search for the way of perfection, with apostolic zeal deriving exclusively from charity. He wanted to establish a true communion with his brethren as regards the way of conceiving and valuing the nature, end and essential means proper to the Order, and so he expounded with clarity his thought, wishes, objectives and form of government[11].

In Spring 1927 he wanted also to address a message to the nuns and Sisters, substantially united to the tree of the Dominican family. He understood that the numerous congregations did not break the original unity and did not change the nature and quality of the blood among the disciples of St Dominic. There were more than 6,400 religious of contemplative life, and more than 20,000 Sisters of apostolic life, spread throughout the world, as much among catholics as among other Christian groups and among those who had not yet received the faith, committed to serve the spiritual and bodily needs of their neighbour. He understood that if all the Dominican forces were to be more closely united, the effective force of the Order would undoubtedly be increased. Such a union of forces would do no harm to the Order, indeed on the contrary, it would be a gift: The same family spirit gives us life; the same love for the common good of the Order beats in all Dominican hearts, the same ardour in the sacred apostolate received from the Holy Founder, which burns like a flame in our wills and aspires to the same in unanimous form’.[12]

Activities as Master
Despite his short Mastership, he showed himself to be a prudent, compassionate and faithful servant of his brethren. Though it might not be as colourful and as visionary as his term as Prior Provincial.

He appointed two commissions with the task of adapting the Constitutions to the new Code of Canon Law (1926). On 10 February 1927 he set up a new commission to examine the Constitutions of the nuns and present them for approval to the Holy See.
In 1927 he organized a solemn celebration in honour of St Thomas Aquinas in the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, and then, on the site of the Angelicum college (Via San Vitale) he presided at an academic function on 16 March. On 2 March he presided the ‘station’ at the beginning of Lent in Santa Sabina, then not yet the seat of the curia. More than two thousand people took part in the procession, very many from Rome even though the Pope did not come, he visited the Basilica on Ash Wednesday and prayed evening office with the friars. The academic celebration in honour of Saint Thomas took place the following year not in the small lecture room of the Angelicum, but in the aula magna of the Apostolic Chancery which was under Cardinal Früwirth OP.

He followed with interest the progress of the study centres. He appointed Br Paul Dhorme as director of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, and he attended a lecture he gave at the Angelicum.

He was in solidarity with the brothers and Sisters of Mexico during the height of the religious persecutions. He also consoled the sisters when the Sancta Infancia in Foochow (China) was attacked on January 1927. He restored to its original boundaries the ancient Province of St Hyacinth in Poland (2 July 1927) hoping for a renewal of spirit in Christ[13].

A new site for the Angelicum
On 9 June 1928, after having overcome a number of difficulties, permission was obtained from the Italian government to repossess pleno iure the old Monastery of SS. Dominic and Sixtus in Rome. The intention was to transfer there the Angelicum college, which the Master of the Order, Blessed Hyacinth Marie Cormier, had founded in Via San Vitale. Blessed Bonaventure had laboured for some two years to reach this objective. He and other of the brethren regarded this as an ideal place, set between the hills of the Esquiline and the Quirinale, in the very centre of ancient Rome[14].

By then, the inaugural Mass for the academic year 1928-9 was already celebrated in the church of Saints Dominic and Sixtus, the students reached 490, of whom 77 belonged to the Order.
On 20 June 1928, he addressed a letter to the whole Order in which he declared Saint Louis Bertrand the special patron of novitiates. Though the initiative came from the 1926 General Chapter, the Master nevertheless confessed that for him nothing was more welcome and pleasing than to carry out the decisions taken by the brethren. ‘St Louis’, he wrote, had formed for a long time and in a very solid manner the young religious entrusted to him. He went before his disciples setting an example of prudence, rectitude and healthy discipline, a true son of St Dominic he preached the gospel in many parts of Colombia and succeeded in bringing very many to the Church of Christ’.[15] A touching homage to his favourite saint and patron.

Resignation from the Mastership of the Order
On 30 March 1929, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, informed him, in the name of the Holy Father Pius XI, that the resignation he had presented to the Pope had been accepted. “The Pope”, one reads in the letter from the Cardinal, “had accepted the resignation with difficulty and regret (ægre)”. But reasons of health had weighed most heavily in accepting it. His merits were recognized and all his work in the three or so years he had been Master of the Order was praised[16]. A few days later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Religious, appointed the socius of the Master, Br Juan Casas as Vicar General until the next General Chapter.

The 27 March, having presented his resignation, he went to the shrine of Madonna dell’Arco, near Naples, for some rest. When the resignation was made public, he returned to Rome on 10 April to hand over the reins of the Order to the Vicar General. He left the Angelicum college, where he resided, on 30 April and transferred to the priory of the Most Holy Trinity (in Via Condotti), the priory of his Province in Rome. A few days later he returned to Spain.

Though the only reason for his resignation cited explicitly in official documents was his state of his health, although the abovementioned letter from Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State, leads one to sense there were also other reasons.

From France pieces of information reached the Holy See according to which certain friars were involved in the Action Française movement, a nationalist movement monarchical in nature, which Pius XI had already condemned by December 1926[17]. In the face of the desire of the Holy See that the Master remove from his priories friars accused of supporting the movement referred to, the Master postponed for a few months his intervention until he had personally verified the truth of the information, such tardiness in action and the promptitude to obey greatly annoyed the Pope[18].

The chronicler in the periodical Analecta O.P. ended his account with these words: As much as when he was elected as on withdrawing from his office he offered the present and future brethren a clear example of simplicity and humility which no one will be able to forget’.[19]
After a brief respite in Madrid, at the beginning of June 1929 he went to the priory of Ocaña where, in conformity with the Constitutions he personally chose to reside.

Six months after he was relieved of his office, on 31 December 1929, he wrote from Ocaña to a Dominican religious, Sister Pilar of Jesus: ‘… I never cease to thank God for the good He has bestowed to me and for the most gentle peace of the spirit which He has given me and made me savor’.

On 21 September 1929, Br Martin S. Gillet (1875-1951) was elected and he governed the Order until 1946. During that elective Chapter, held at the Angelicum, Blessed Bonaventure Paredes as immediate Master, was the first to offer his obedience to the newly elected Master. As ex-Master of the Order, he also took part in the succeeding Chapters at Le Saulchoir (1932) Belgium and again in Rome (1935).

Persecution and martyrdom
Though assigned to the Priory of St Dominic in Ocaña, Blessed Bonaventure would frequent the priory of the Most Holy Rosary in Madrid[20]for ministry or personal business.

It was during one of these visits when he was caught unaware and when the Priory was assaulted on Sunday 19 July 1936. Though Blessed Bonaventure was able to leave the Priory on the eve of the attack, at the invitation of his friend, Don Pedro Errazquin, who had also offered shelter to other friars. With the delicate political conditions in Spain during the previous months, this family had previously volunteered to obtain for him a passport and a travel ticket to the Philippines, but he, elderly and unwell, had great difficulty in undertaking the journey and confided that he would travel only if his superiors in Rome allowed him. In fact he wrote to Rome and obtained permission for the journey. His friend Pedro Errazquin requested the passport, which was denied him because he was a religious.

All the while he sought refuge at the Errazquin home but towards the end of July, Don Pedro himself was arrested and put to death. Blessed Bonaventure became convinced that he might be under police surveillance, transferred to a Pension House called the Infante Don Juan, (on Recoletos Street). Here he heard the confession to some of the residents. There he led a life of recollection and prayer, recited the breviary and also celebrated the mass. A witness has testified: ‘Father Bonaventure stood in front of a small table with a small piece of bread and a glass and I believe he was celebrating Holy Mass’[21].

He was arrested on 11 August by a group of armed militia. He had identified himself as a religious and a priest, and said bravely: ‘I have committed no crime except that of being a priest and a religious; Divine Providence so wants’. They led him away to a checa situated in a Madrid street named García de Paredes. The following day, 12 August 1936, they took him to Fuencarral where at about 10 o’clock they shot him in the area known as Valdesenderín del Encinar, between Fuencarral and Alcobendas. He kept to the end the rosary and the breviary. They buried him in the cemetery of Fuencarral.

His remains were exhumed on 24 October 1940 and transferred to the crypt of the church of the Most Holy Rosary in Madrid. In 1967 they were again transferred to the pantheon-chapel of the Monastery of Santo Tomás de Avila, where they still are.

Remembered as a martyr by his successor
The Master of the Order, Br Martin S. Gillet, wrote a letter about the martyrs of the religious persecution in Spain, and in it he dealt at length with, and praised, his predecessor. He reckoned that his life could be summed up as a perpetual supernatural union with God through exquisite humility and the practice of mildness with simplicity and magnanimity, virtues which in him were connatural and in this way he prepared for martyrdom.[22].

Reputation of sanctity
All the witnesses in the process unanimously emphasized the virtues of Blessed Bonaventura García Paredes. He was a man with a rooted and deep faith who manifested his recollection and union with God. He had humane and good feelings towards everyone, always willing to forgive. His closeness to the world of workers and those who were lowly, simple and poor was noticed. Very prudent and wise, patient, just with everyone. He was constant in carrying out his duty, compassionate and firm in his decisions. He ate, drank and behaved with moderation, and was edifying in his deep humility.

After relinquishing office he did not appear saddened and he also tried to justify the action of the Holy See with respect and mildness. To see him celebrate Mass was moving. In his visit to Vietnam as Prior Provincial he prostrated himself on the ground in front of the memorial stone to our martyrs and remained stretched out for a long time. When he got up, those present noticed that his face was wet with tears. They reflected the virtues of a saint, exclaimed his successor Br Aniceto Fernández.

Conclusion
The Order of Preachers venerates joyfully this son with the title of blessed and protomartyr among its Masters, raised to the honours of the altar. The Holy Rosary Province venerates this son given to the Order as Master.

**This biography was re-edited and abridged from the official biography prepared by the Postulator General of the ORder on the occasion of the beatification of the Servant of God.

Notes:
[1] Cf the biography published in Analecta Ordinis Prædicatorum (abbreviated to AOP) 17 (1925-1926) 791-795. It was very probably checked by Blessed Bonaventure himself.
[2] In 1890 he signed himself ‘Fray Buenaventura de San Luis B.’, the name which, obviously, he took on entering the Order. He used the compound name ‘García Paredes’, in the same way as it was used by his father Serapio García Paredes y González, son of Gregorio and Josefa González. In all the certificates of baptism, birth, solemn profession, priesthood there always features the name: García Paredes. However, in the first letter he addressed to the Order, in Latin, he signed himself, ‘Frater Bonaventura García de Paredes’. On another occasion: ‘Bonaventura G. de Paredes’, on another ‘Bonaventura G. Paredes’.
[3] The parochial school was directed by the parish priest, Antonio Francos Pertierra.
[4] According to a tradition. Bl. Bonaventura lived in the same cell which, in another period, was occupied by an Asturian martyr of Vietnam, Saint Melchor García Sampedro; His Master of Novices was Fr. José Trobat, a missionary from Vietnam. In a beautiful letter he wrote to Sor Pilar de Jesús OP: in explaining to this religious his choice for spend his days, he manifested a great love for this priory for not only for being the place of his novitiate, but because “it is also the true sanctuary of the Province, where the martyrs of Tunkin were formed” (Letter to Sor Pilar de Jesús OP, Ocaña, 31 of December, 1929). As we shall see this Priory shall play an important role in his whole career as friar: aside from the fact that he began his Dominican life within this cloister as a novice, many years later, he was prior of Ocaña when he was elected Provincial in 1910, the Elective General Chapter of 1926 was held in this convent and after his resignation, till his martyrdom, he was officially assigned to this Convent.
[5] Msgr. Nozaleda was the Archbishop of Manila when Spain lost the colony to the Americans. Upon his return to Spain, he was appointed Archbishop of Valencia in 1903, thus brought a national crisis as the politicans from he left accused the Prelate of being instrumental to the loss of the colony in the Far East. Bl. Bonaventure presented his case to prove his innocence and his integrity.
[6] Tangipahoa, and the centre for theological studies in Rosaryville, New Orleans, Louisiana, inaugurating it on 16 November 1911
[7] Among the electors was the future martyr Blessed Luis Urbano, socius of the prior provincial of Aragon, as well as the friars Ludovico Fanfani, Bede Jarrett, Albert Janvier, Vincent McNabb, Juan Casas, Vicente Beltrán de Heredia, the Servant of God Giocondo Pio Lorgna, Santiago Ramirez…
[8] Cornelius M. Böle, socius of the diffinitor of the Austro-Hungarian Province: AOP 17 (1925-1926) 591.
[9] Positio, p. 405.
[10] The Servant of God died during his term of office, 20 February 1928. Giving a brief announcement of this, it was written in Analecta: ‘In death as in life he shone forth for his outstanding virtue, steeped in gentle piety and serenity. His continuous conversation with Jesus did not stop except at death, which he received with joy and with his gaze fixed on an image of the Merciful Love’: AOP 18 (1927-1928) 459-460. See the obituary at pp. 524-527.
[11] Letter of 25 December 1926 in AOP 18 (1927-1928) 9-21.
[12] AOP 18 (1927) 122-127.
[13] AOP 18 (1927-1928) 173-175.
[14] Since 1873, by means of the laws of suppression, the government had expropriated from the nuns, who lived there since 1575, more than three quarters of the old monastery built by St Pius V. In 1927 the Italian government put up for sale the part occupied by the administration of Beni del Culto, and the Order decided to purchase it, above all because the Angelicum in Via San Vitale was becoming increasingly cramped. The new purchase extended over 17,000 square metres. (AOP 18 (1927-1928) 583-585).
[15] AOP 18 (1927-1928) 537-539.
[16] AOP 19 (1929-1930) 136-137.
[17] Pius XI manifested his thinking on this question starting from the allocution he gave during the secret consistory of 20 December 1926. He had expressed the desire to see excluded those catholics who adhered to this movement: AAS 18 (1926) 517-520. This politico-social movement arose in France at the end of the 19th century. It put forward a radical nationalism, it aspired to the restoration of the monarchy and, among some of its ideologies, these aspirations mingled with agnostic, atheist and anti-christian positions.
[18] It is evident that a documented biography of the new Blessed is needed, making use of Vatican and Order documents, now available to academics. It is known that the documentation for the period of Pius XI’s pontificate is already available for consultation in the Vatican Secret Archive. More easily, the respective sections of the General Archive of the Order of Preachers at Santa Sabina in Rome can be consulted.
[19] AOP 19 (1929-1930)189.
[20] This house, attained the status as a priory in 1935 under the title of “Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Filipinas”.
[21] Positio, p. 161.
[22] AOP 24 (1937-1938) 541-558.