Henryk Sáiz Aparicio

Who they were

Born at Ubierna, near Burgos, on 1 December 1889, Enrique Saiz Aparicio entered the Salesian novitiate at Sarrià, Barcelona, at sixteen, professing in 1909 and being ordained priest at Salamanca in 1918. He taught and directed Salesian colleges in Salamanca and Madrid, known for piety, zeal and dedication, and for a once-stern character that gradually softened into gentleness, patience and charity; from around 1934, sensing the coming revolution, he began preparing his community for possible martyrdom.

When the house at Carabanchel Alto was attacked by militiamen on 20 July 1936, he gathered the boys, gave them Mary Help of Christians' blessing, and went out waving a white handkerchief, telling the attackers, "If you want blood, here I am, but do no harm to the boys." The boys were sent home and the community imprisoned, released, and then, by the militia's usual method, rearrested one by one outside the house and killed off separately. Enrique Saiz was shot on 2 October 1936, aged 47, at the head of a group of 42 Salesian martyrs of Madrid; he was beatified in Rome on 28 October 2007, within the combined cause of 63 Salesian martyrs of Madrid and Seville.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

Salesian priest and college director in Madrid, head of a group of 42 Salesian martyrs shot during the 1936 persecution; beatified in 2007.

The cause