Aug 9 – Bl Florentino Asensio Barroso, (1877-1936), Bishop & Martyr, Patron of Torture Victims & Those Under A Promise Celibacy

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Former Apostolic Administrator of Barbastro, Monsignor Florentino Asensio y Barroso was born to a poor but devout Catholic family in Villasexmir, Valladolid, Spain, on October 16, 1877, he had an elder brother who was an Augustinian Monk.

Ordained to the Priesthood on June 1, 1901, in Valladolid, Barroso earned a Licentiate and Doctorate in Theology from the Pontifical University of Valladolid, where he subsequently served as a Lecturer.

Spiritual Director and Confessor to several Religious Congregations, Barroso was a keen Orator. Luckily, many of his homilies have survived. Receiving his Episcopal Consecration following his appointment as Apostolic Administrator of Barbastro at 58 years of age on January 26, 1936, his brief Episcopate, which lasted only five months, was noted for his charity to the poor and sick. However, this was a period of hostility to the Catholic Church.

Bishop Florentino was placed under house arrest, and then imprisoned. Moved to solitary confinement on August 1, 1936, he was tortured and brutally mutilated.

An autopsy on his remains performed on April 16, 1993, proved that he suffered among others the amputation of his genitals, almost certainly in attempted mockery of his vow of celibacy.

Following these horrible tortures, Bishop Florentino was shot three times through the temple in a Cemetery outside Barbastro, Huesca, on August 2, 1936, becoming thus one of the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.

Buried in a common grave with other victims, his remains were later exhumed and immediately identified as his body was found incorrupt. Re – interred in the Cathedral Crypt of Barbastro, beneath the Presbytery, his body was later moved to the Capilla de San Carlos Borromeo inside the same Cathedral, were they lie to this day in a specially constructed sarcophagus.

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View Of The Sarcophagus Which Houses The Venerated Incorrupt Remains Of Bishop Florentino At The Chapel Of St. Charles Borromeo, Inside The Cathedral Of Barbastro, Huesca, Spain.

Love,
Matthew