A Worthy Daughter Of Dominic

In yesterday’s post I looked at the life of the former Dominican Master General who was martyred in the Civil War, Blessed Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, as I was doing so I thought of another Dominican martyred in the conflict, one who made history, even if in a negative way.   This was Sr Josefina Sauleda Paulis, the first cloistered Dominican nun to be martyred for the Catholic faith. 

By the way, I know I have exploring these martyrs and I have been benefiting from it, but I hope, that regular readers are not pulling their hair out in frustration and want something controversial to get the juices going.  I think the example of these Catholics is important – we face many assaults to our faith and while we may never have to face what these brothers and sisters had to face, their courage can inspire us – and we can call on their intercession when we too are being tested.  Take these days as a little retreat with the contemporary martyrs of the Church so we may be encouraged and edified.

I’m sure Blessed Josefina never thought that she would make history within her Order, but her life seemed directed towards a heroic witness to Christ right from the beginning.  Born Ventureta Martha Francisca Sauleda i Paulis in San Pol de Mar near Barcelona on the 30th July 1885 to Victoria Sauleda i Roura and Josepa Paulis i Roura, she was baptised six after her birth.  At the age of two she was confirmed, and received her First Holy Communion when she was twelve.

Both of her parents were devout, but it was her mother who took charge of the children’s religious instruction, and she impressed on them the importance of personal prayer as simply speaking with God.  Here lay the seeds of Ventureta’s contemplative vocation.  Attending the Dominican College, the young girl excelled in her studies and reflected on the life of the sisters which she found deeply attractive.   When she finished school she had made up her mind to give her life to Christ – but where? She had a desire to serve Christ in an apostolic congregation, but there was also another desire: she yearned for the contemplative life.  At the suggestion of her spiritual director she decided to do a series of spiritual exercises to help her discern: when she had finished she found the call to the cloister to be the deeper one.  She knew which Order she was called to: the Dominicans.

On the 19th January 1905 she entered the Dominican Monastery of Mount Zion in Barcelona, there to spend the rest of her life in prayer and quiet service.  On the 12th March she received the habit and was given the name Sr Maria Josefina.  She made her first vows on the 24th March 1906 and solemnly professed on the 12th April 1909.  She settled down into community life, fulfilling her duties, dedicating her life to prayer and penance.    She was noted for her ability, charity and kindness.  On the 21st June 1929 she was elected Prioress, and re-elected in 1932.  Standing down having served two terms, she was appointed Mistress of Novices in 1935.

As the community was at prayer on the morning of the 19th July 1939 their meditation was disturbed by the sounds of bullets outside the monastery.  When they opened the church for Sunday Mass, no one came – the revolution had started and people were staying in their homes.  The day was eerie – the battle for Barcelona was in full swing, the communists would win.  When evening came their neighbours called into the sisters and urged them to leave the monastery- they would take them into their homes – the Prioress agreed, and the community dispersed into the homes of their neighbours who took every precaution to protect them.  The next morning the sisters returned to the monastery – their chaplain arrived and they had Mass after which he urged them to leave and take refuge in safe houses. They did so.

The Prioress, Sr Josefina and a small group took refuge in an empty apartment not far from the monastery, and from there witnessed the violent attack on the monastery carried out by the communists on Tuesday 21st July.  A police check on the apartment passed over as the chaplain posed as the owner.  The Prioress was quite old and the sisters urged her to go into the country, back to her village where she would be safe.  Having persuaded her to do so, Sr Josefina was elected as temporary Prioress. 

Realising they were in real danger, Josefina was looking for a safer refuge and the little group moved, and they lived safely in there new accommodation until the end of August.  On the 31st August, Sr Josefina and another sister had cause to go back to the apartment to collect some belongings.  As they passed the damaged monastery, a look of pity registered itself on their faces and it was noticed by some communists who were hanging the street.  While the two nuns were in the apartment, the militia had been contacted and they entered the building.  They caught Sr Josefina who was downstairs and arrested her.  She was taken to a prison building and there interrogated for twelve consecutive hours: they thought she was the Prioress of the monastery and wanted to know where she had hidden the monastery’s wealth and where the chaplain and other sisters were hiding.  She remained silent, infuriating her captors who turned violent and threatened her.   Realising she would not talk they bundled her into a car and drove off.

The next day Sr Josefina’s body was found on display in the Hippodrome.  A placard around its neck declared that here was the Prioress of Mount Zion Monastery and her name was Sauleda.  It was brought to the local morgue where the sacristan of the monastery discovered it and informed her family.  Her remains were unrecognisable – her face had been completely torn up – it was obvious that she had been brutally tortured before she died.   A bullet was found in her head, and her face torn – the coroner concluded that her face had been torn apart with instruments of torture, and she as then shot in the head.  Years later one of those who tortured her came forward and revealed that she had endured great suffering with prayer and forgiveness and had died at dawn on the morning of the 1st September.

Sr Josefina was the first cloistered Dominican nun to be martyred, she was beatified on the 28th October 2007. 

The Worthy Son Of Dominic

When it comes to the atrocities committed during the Spanish Civil War, defenders of the Republicans always cite the murder of poet and dramatist Fredrico Garcia Lorca as an unforgivable crime.  The brutal murder of such a cultured man, we are told, just shows how evil and philistine the Nationalists really were.  The killing of innocents regardless of who they are is always wrong, and in killing Lorca, the Nationalists murdered one of the world's greatest artists.  Lorca was not an innocent, though, he was firmly in the Republican camp and was using his position to push the new regime's agenda - so he was politically involved.  It is still not a reason to murder the poor man.  Warren Carroll in his book, The Last Crusade maintains that General Franco did not give the orders to kill Lorca - he was not even aware of the execution until later, and when he found out he disciplined the ones responsible.  I'm sure historians and literary critics will argue that one out for years.

But Carroll also points out that as the defenders of the Republican cause lament the killing of a renowned man of letters by the Nationalists as an act of cultural desecration (my phrase), he points out that the Republicans themselves killed renowned and famous people in their rage against the Catholic faith.  I am by no means defending the killing of Lorca by referring to the killing of other notables, atrocities were committed by both sides, but we do need to recognise that the murdering of eminent figures occurred on both sides.

Among the notable figures murdered by the Republicans, and since beatified, was Fr Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, the former Master General of the Dominican Order (the Superior General).  For those who are not au fait with Catholicism, the Master of the Dominicans is a very important position in the Church and he can be highly influential. 

Fr Buenaventura was born in Castanedo de Valdes in Asturias in the north of Spain on the 19th April 1866, and baptised the same day.  His parents Serapio and Maria were very pious and brought their children up in the Catholic faith, passing on not only their knowledge but their practice of prayer and an example of faith and trust in God.  Their children were impressed by this example and Buenaventura's older brother became a priest. As a child, Buenaventura helped his father herd sheep while attending to other duties, including his schooling.  Like his elder brother he discerned a vocation to the priesthood, but within the Dominican Order.

He spent two years at the Dominican Apostolic School in Corias, and while his teachers felt he was ready to enter novitiate, the superior thought his health was little too precarious at the time to receive him, and so he was sent home.   When he recovered his health, he entered the Order in another province, in Ocana, Toledo. He made his first profession in 1884, Solemn Profession in 1887 and was ordained priest on the 25th July 1891, the Feast of St James.  He continued his studies and in 1897 he was awarded a doctorate in Philosophy, and the following year a doctorate in Civil Law.

In 1899 he was sent to the Philippines, where he took up a position in the University of St Tomas in Manila and wrote for and eventually edited Libertas, a Catholic daily newspaper. In 1901 he was elected the Coventual Prior of the Royal Monastery of St Tomas in Avila, and so he returned to Spain.  He continued his academic work, publishing a number of important books, including studies of the pontificate of Leo XIII.  He founded the College of Santa Maria de Nieve in Segovia, and in 1910 he was elected the Prior of St Dominic's in Ocana.  In this capacity he had to attend the Provincial Chapter in Manila, and there he was elected the Prior Provincial of the Holy Rosary Province, a Province that spanned a large part of Spain and parts of Asia: it was the biggest province in the Order at the time. 

As Provincial Fr Buenaventura was zealous for the renewal of a missionary spirit, travelling a great deal between Europe and Asia meeting the friars and nuns, establishing new provinces in the east, and in Spain re-establishing the old province of Aragon whose territory had been incorporated into Holy Rosary. He began the building of an extension to the University of St Tomas in Manila, set up an important Dominican journal promoting the teachings and spirituality of St Dominic, and extended the province into new territory in the US.  He stepped down in 1917 and was sent to found a new Priory in Madrid, and serve as Prior.

In 1926, at the Order's General Chapter, held that year in Ocana, Fr Buenaventura was elected the Master of the Order.  When news of the election came to him he was stunned.  Brought before the Chapter to formally accept, he fell to the ground and with tears in his eyes begged to be freed of the office - he was not capable of the onerous duties the position required.  The Prior Provincial of Spain, Fr Luis Alonso Getino, told him to trust in divine providence and asked him to accept.  He did so and took the oath of office.

Moving to Rome, Fr Buenaventura spent the next two and half years working tirelessly in the service of the Order.  Coupled with his official and ceremonial functions, he led a renewal of the Order, renewing the Constitutions of the nuns, visited many countries, tried to help and support the Dominicans in Mexico during the persecutions there and restored the Polish province of St Hyacinth.  It was Fr Buenaventura who re-situated the Angelicum University to its present site in Rome, the former convent of Sts Dominic and Sixtus.  His health, however, was not good, and so on the 30th March 1929 he resigned as Master and returned to Ocana.  There is evidence which suggests that his health was not the only reason for his resignation, but rather his failure, in the eyes of officials in the Curia and perhaps even the Pope, to deal with politically motivated friars in France - he took too long, it seems, to investigate them.

He was in the Priory of Ocana when the Civil War broke out, and the community was attacked on the 19th July 1936.  Fr Buenaventura had managed to get out the night before, and found refuge with a friend, Pedro Errazquin.  It was suggested he go to the Philippines, but he said he needed Rome's permission to do so.  He was given permission and he applied for a passport, but it was refused because he was a religious. 

At the end of July his friend Pedro was arrested and shot.  Fr Buenaventura fled to the another refuge, the Pension House, where he ministered to a small community of residences there.  His last days were spent in prayer and reflection awaiting, he must have known by then, his death.  On the 11th August the militia had found out where he was and arrived to arrest him.  He was taken to prison, a checa (the prisons Republicans established in various buildings).  The next day he was taken out and shot as he clutched his rosary and his brievary, his body was buried in the cemetery of Fuencarral.

In 1940 his remains were transferred to the crypt of the Holy Rosary Church in Madrid, and then in 1967 to the chapel of the Monastery of St Tomas in Avila.  He was beatified in 2007.  Blessed Buenaventura was not only honoured as a martyr within the Dominican Order, but the obvious holiness of his life had been acknowledged by many even in his lifetime.  His martyrdom crowned a life of heroic virtue and renown as a scholar and superior.