On Sept. 18, we honored three Marianists, Bros. Carlos Eraña, Jesús Hita, and Fidel Fuidio, who were executed in 1936 as part of a brutal anti-Church campaign during the Spanish Civil War.
Bro. Carlos, 52, was a principal of a Catholic primary school in Madrid, but had fled to Ciudad Real in 1933 when the turmoil began.
He was arrested on Sept. 18, 1936, along with seven laymen, and executed by firing squad.
Bro. Jesús, 36, and Bro. Fidel, 56, both educators, met the same fate shortly thereafter. They were shot near a cemetery wall on the outskirts of Ciudad Real. Their bodies were later discovered in an abandoned well.
These three Marianists were beatified in 1995 byPope St. John Paul II.
A total of 15 Marianists were executed in Spain in 1936, all of them because of their devotion to Christ and loyalty to the Church.
Bro. Fidel expressed what many of them fervently believed: “If it would be necessary that I sacrifice my life for the cause of religion and my country, I offer my head gladly.”