Shot and stabbed students made martyrs by Catholic church in Spain

NINE Spanish seminary students killed in the Spanish civil war have been made martyrs by the Catholic church.

Among the group is a 22-year-old who was shot 11 times in the street and a 21-year-old stabbed after being imprisoned in a church.

Archbishop Jesus Sanz Montes de Oviedo said: “They wanted to be priests, but God chose the altar of highest sacrifice for them in a Mass that does not end”

He added: “Spain’s Christian history tells a paradoxical story through the bodies of its martyrs- the joy of life that survives the agonising death of Christians killed in hatred of faith- victims of a terrible confusion, a crazed persecution, a repression in the name of freedom which killed freedom.”

The group were all aged between 18 and 25 and were among the estimated 8,000 Catholic clergy killed in the Spanish conflict in the 1930s.