Bl. Francesc de Paula Castelló Aleu

Francesc Castelló was born in Alicante in 1914 and grew up in Lleida, Catalonia. He studied chemistry, worked as a chemical engineer, and was active in Catholic Action. He was engaged to be married.

After the Spanish Civil War broke out he was arrested for being a Catholic and condemned by a people's tribunal. On the eve of his death he wrote to his fiancée offering their love to God, saying he felt no grief at dying, only "an intense, strong joy... like a foretaste of glory." He was shot in Lleida on September 29, 1936. Pius XI, after reading his letters, held him up as a model for Catholic youth. He was beatified in 2001.

Francesc de Paula Castelló Aleu was beatified in 2001.

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