Bl. Elvira Moragas Cantarero

Elvira Moragas was born in 1881 in Lillo, near Toledo, Spain. Her father was a pharmacist. She was one of the first women in Spain to qualify as a pharmacist, graduating from the University of Madrid in 1905, and she ran the family pharmacy after her father's death.

In 1915 she entered the Discalced Carmelites in Madrid, taking the name María Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga, and later became prioress. When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936 the convent was attacked. She was arrested and pressed to reveal where the community had hidden its valuables and the names of people who helped it. She refused and was shot on August 15, 1936. John Paul II beatified her in 1998.

Elvira Moragas Cantarero was beatified in 1998.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.