Blessed Bernard de Lugar Nuevo de Fenollet

Bernard of Lugar Nuevo de Fenollet, born José Bleda Grau (July 23, 1867, in Lugar Nuevo de Fenollet – September 4, 1936, in Genovés), was a Spanish Blessed of the Catholic Church, a martyr, a Capuchin friar, and a victim of the anti-Catholic persecutions during the Spanish Civil War. He came from a religious family. In 1899, at the age of 32, he entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, where he made his religious profession in 1903. He took his perpetual vows on February 4, 1904. He was subsequently entrusted with the duties of a questor at the friary in Orihuela and also worked as a tailor. Faithful to the Rule of the Order, he performed his assigned tasks with humility, and his exemplary life served as a model for his fellow friars. During the Spanish Civil War, following an attack by revolutionaries on the friary, he hid at his sister's home. He was arrested on August 30, 1936; at the time, he was almost completely blind. He was then taken to Benigànim. On September 4, he was executed by firing squad without trial near Genovés and buried in a mass grave at the local cemetery. According to witnesses who saw his body before burial, his head had been severely mutilated. The informative process took place in Valencia between 1957 and 1959. He was beatified as part of the first group of Capuchin martyrs murdered during the religious persecutions of 1936–1939, alongside José Aparicio Sanz and 232 companions. They were the first martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II in the third millennium at the Vatican on March 11, 2001. In the Catholic Church, he is commemorated on his dies natalis (September 4) and also as part of the group of martyrs on September 22.