Portrait of Bl.Salvio Huix-Miralpeix for the Oxford Oratory

Following the 11am Mass at the Oxford Oratory yesterday there was the unveiling in the parish social centre of a painting of Bl. Salvio Huix-Miralpeix, beatified last year, and the first Oratorian to be formally recognised as a martyr. The portrait has been commissioned by the Fathers of the Oratory for the church.

The portrait on its easil

Image: Oxford Oratory

The artist is Alvin Ong who is studying here in Oxford at the Ruskin School of Art. He worked from a photograph, but instead of full choir habit depicted the Bishop in habitus Piano and added the palm of martyrdom. The pectoral cross and ring are those of Bl. Salvio, who had sent them to Pope Pius XI in anticipation of the fate which befell him in 1936.

There are more pictures of the occasion and information about the artist and the picture on the Oratory website at New painting unveiled.

Celebrating Bl.Salvio Huix-Miralpeix

Yesterday at the Oxford Oratory the 11am Solemn Mass was a celebration of the Beatification of Bishop Salvio Huix-Miralpeix a fortnight ago in Tarragona. The Oratory website's illustrated report on those  ceremonies in Catalonia can be read at Beatification of our First Martyr. I wrote about the subject in my recent post The Spanish Martyrs.

Bl. Salvio Huix-Miralpeix C.O.

Image:Oxford Oratory

It was highly appropriate that the impressive red vestments worn by the sacred ministers were Spanish - the dalmatic and tunicle have the distinctive feature of the collarette, which I assume originates in an apparel for an amice - and the music was by Spanish composers, the Mass setting itself being by Tomas Luis de Victoria.

In his sermon Fr Dominic, who has long had an interest in the story of Bl. Salvio, told the congregation of the life and martyrdom of the Oratorian who became Provost of the Oratory at Vic and then Bishop successively of  Ibiza and Llerida, and put it in the wider context of both the other martyrs of Spain and St Philip's attitude to sanctity and martyrdom amongst his sons.

The Mass concluded with the singing of the Te Deum in honour of the Beatification.

 

 

Image:flama.info

At Mass we were given prayer cards with the Collect for Bl. Salvio, whose feast day is November 6th:

Almighty and eternal God, who

in your goodmess bestowed on the
bishop and martyr Salvio Huix the
gift of pastoral charity even to the
point of shedding of his blood for
Christ and his Church; bestow on us
also the grace to work faithfully in
your vineyard and to experience his
intercession in this life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen

The Spanish Martyrs

The Oxford Oratory pilgrims to the beatification of Bl. Salvio Huix-Miralpeix in Tarragona at the weekend have returned from what was clearly an enjoyable visit to the ceremony and to other Catalan cities and religious sites. There is an illustrated report from the Oratory website at  Oxford Oratory Pilgrimage to Catalonia and it also has  The Holy Father's Message for the Beatification of the Spanish Martyrs of the Twentieth Century.

Stephanie Mann on her blog Supremacy and Survival has a post Martyrs are Controversial: The 522 Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War about the beatification of these 522 martyrs. She also has quotations  about the controversy this has caused in the minds of those who consider this is either opening old wounds, or from those who are critical of the Spanish Church per se or because the Church supported the Nationalists in the Civil War. Given the persecution to which the Church had been subjected after 1931 that was hardly surprising. It was, of course, the Nationalist rising in July 1936 that gave the excuse for the vicious attacks on the Church, particularly in Catalonia, and led to many of the worst Republican atrocities against those considered in any way likely to be supporters of the Nationalist cause. These dreadful events, as chronicled in Luis Bolin's Spain:the Vital Years or in C.E Lucas Phillips' The Spanish Pimpernel , are only too easily and conveniently ignored by those who go weak at the knees at Orwell's Homage to Catalonia - I recall my amazement when I looked at it to find that the wicked "right wingers" were not the Nationalist forces but the hardline orthodox party Communists...

Whatever convicted Republicans may have suffered after 1939 under the Caudillo's rule, it really is unreasonable to moan about the events after 1939 to distract from the appalling crimes committed by the Republicans, whether officially or by spontaneous acts of hatred and revenge in the summer of 1936. Basically the Leftist have always been bad losers over the Spanish Civil War - for once they were defeated. As afriend and I were reflecting yesterday, what would have been the situation for Europe have been had Spain been ruled by a Stalinist regime in the world after 1945.

Here, for the record, from the blog Mundabor, is Pope Pius XII’s Message After the Victory In Spain.

Bl. Salvio Huix-Mirelpeix, Oratorian, Bishop and Martyr

Yesterday in Tarragona there occurred the Beatification of 522 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War, amongst whom was the Oratorian Bl. Salvio Huix-Miralpeix, Bishop of Llerida (Lérida), who was martyred along with many of his priests by the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War on August 5th 1936. He is the first Oratorian martyr to be beatified.

Bl. Salvio was amember of the Oratory at Vich before becoming Bishop of Ibiza in 1928, and was transalted to Llerida  eighteen months before his murder. There is a life of him on the website of the Manchester Oratory, which can be read here. The Oxford Oratory website has an article about him, and about another Oratorian, Fr Mas, who was also a victim of the anti-clericals and whose cause is being carried forward. It can be read here.

Bl.Salvio Huix-Miralpeix

Image:beatificacion2013.com

  

A group of pilgrims from Oxford, led by Fr Dominic and Fr Richard, have gone to attend the ceremonies of Beatification and to visit pilgrimage sites in Catalonia, and the Oxford Oratory will have a Mass of thanksgiving for the Beatification at 11am on Sunday October 27th.

Until the beatifications of recent years the many Catholic victims of the Red Tetror in Spain before and during the Civil War have tended to be ignored by the outside world. The terrible events of those years have been ignored by many who really should no better. Having read something of the hsitory of the period I find it really shocking to read, for example, Anglican clergy who write of the 'legitimacy' of the Second Spanish Republic.

May Bl. Salvio and his companions continue to pray for the Church in Spain and for persecuted Christians everywhere.