Blessed Enrique García Beltrán

Enrique García Beltrán (Almassora, March 16, 1913 – Castellón, August 16, 1936) was a Capuchin friar from Castellón who died as a martyr at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. He began his studies at the Seraphic Seminary of Massamagrell and later entered the novitiate of Olleria on August 31, 1928. It was at this same novitiate that he made his simple profession of faith on September 1, 1929, and his solemn and perpetual profession on September 17, 1935. He studied philosophy and theology at the Seminary of Orihuela. He was arrested on August 1, 1936, and imprisoned until August 16, when he was taken on the road from Castellón to a location called La Pedrera, where he was killed. He was buried in the Castellón de la Plana cemetery, but after the Spanish Civil War, his remains were identified and transferred to the Almassora cemetery, where they remain today. He has been considered a blessed since March 11, 2001, when Pope John Paul II beatified 233 martyrs of the religious persecution during the Spanish Civil War, including García Beltrán.