Antonio Sáez de Ybarra

Who they were

Antonio Saez de Ibarra was born Ruperto on 25 March 1914 at Hijona in Alava, in the Basque Country, and entered the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, taking the religious name Antonio at the novitiate of Lebrija in 1931. His novitiate was interrupted by anti-religious violence but he made simple profession in 1932, and went on to study philosophy at the college of Santa Maria della Regola in Chipiona until a serious throat illness forced him to move to the friary of Fuente Obejuna.

There the 1936 persecution of religious caught him: he was arrested with the other friars of the community, taken to Azuaga, and killed in the early hours of 22 September 1936, aged twenty-two, along with six confreres. The sources agree that the friars refused to deny their faith and forgave their persecutors before dying. The cause recognised him as a martyr of the faith, and he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on 28 October 2007 together with 497 other martyrs of the Spanish religious persecution.

The miracles

As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.

Why that counted as sanctity

Franciscan friar killed with six confreres at Azuaga during the 1936 Spanish religious persecution; beatified 2007.

The cause