Emanuele Canoura Arnau, born March 10, 1887 in St. Lucia del Valle de Oro (Lugo) Spain; as a teenager he felt the call to the religious state and at 18 became part of the Passionist Congregation, founded by St. Paul of the Cross in the eighteenth century, because since childhood he was devoted to the Virgin, he wanted to take the name of Innocent Immaculate, when he made his religious profession July 27, 1905.

He studied with great profit theology, philosophy and other ecclesiastical sciences, and was ordained September 20, 1913. Almost immediately he was committed by superiors to train new missionaries preaching, passion and, most of his life, went on to teach young students in the various Passionist Community of the Province of the Most Precious Blood of Madrid.

Being a member of the community of Mieres (Asturias), October 4, 1934 superiors demanded his willingness to admit pupils of the Brothers of Christian Schools in the nearby town of Turon. In that year there were the first signs of that great carnage, which was the Spanish Civil War, which devastated parts of the country from 1936 to 1939.

The victims of 7300 were more religious, but already in 1934 there was the Revolution of Asturias region of northern Spain, ranging from the Cantabrian Mountains to the Bay of Biscay, and 5 October 1934 the revolutionary atheists penetrated into the college of the Brothers of the Schools Christian Turon, capturing eight of the students and religious, the more the father Innocent Canoura Arnau, who arrived the day before to confess.

After several days of imprisonment and great hardship and suffering, in which the father Passionist, one priest, worked to comfort the others, almost all young, and without trial, were shot in hatred of the Faith, October 9, 1934 the cemetery of Turon.

The horror of their sacrifice innocent, not enough in there to two years to stop the great persecution against the Spanish Church.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II April 19, 1990, Canonized November 21, 1999.

Author: Antonio Borrelli

Source: Santi e Beati