Bl. Florentino Asensio Barroso

Florentino Asensio Barroso was born in 1877 at Villasexmir near Valladolid, Spain, the son of small shopkeepers. He was ordained a priest in 1901, earned a doctorate in theology, and served his archdiocese as an administrator and as confessor at the seminary.

He was then named apostolic administrator of the vacant diocese of Barbastro, and he was consecrated a bishop in January 1936. Revolutionary groups opposed his arrival.

When the Spanish Civil War began, he was arrested on July 22, 1936. On the night of August 8–9 he was tortured and then shot in the town cemetery. John Paul II beatified him in 1997.

Florentino Asensio Barroso was beatified in 1997.

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