Innocencio of Mary Immaculate

Inocencio of Mary Immaculate was born Manuel Canoura Arnau on 10 March 1887 in Santa Cilla do Valadouro (also known as Santa Cecilia del Valle de Oro), in the province of Lugo in Galicia, northwestern Spain. He entered the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, commonly called the Passionists, in his youth and received the religious name Inocencio of Mary Immaculate (Inocencio de la Inmaculada). After completing his studies and formation he was ordained a priest of that congregation and served in its houses in Spain, taking part in the Passionists' characteristic ministry of preaching, retreats, and pastoral care.

In the first days of October 1934, Father Inocencio went from the Passionist community in the Asturian mining region to the school of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Brothers) in Turón, Asturias, in order to hear the confessions of the students. At that moment the Asturian Revolution of 1934 broke out: an armed uprising of miners and left-wing groups against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. Revolutionary groups occupied Turón and directed violence against the Church and religious institutions. Father Inocencio and the eight De La Salle Brothers who staffed the school were arrested and held prisoner.

On 9 October 1934 the nine religious were taken to the cemetery of Turón and executed by firing squad. Inocencio was forty-seven years of age. The group became known as the Martyrs of Turón. Their deaths took place during a distinct episode of anticlerical violence more than a year and a half before the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. Inocencio was the only priest and the only Passionist among the nine; the others were teaching brothers of the De La Salle congregation.

Pope John Paul II beatified the Martyrs of Turón on 29 April 1990 and canonized them on 21 November 1999. Saint Inocencio of Mary Immaculate is commemorated, together with his companions, on 9 October. He is remembered in the Passionist congregation and in the wider Catholic Church as a priest-martyr of twentieth-century Spain, killed while exercising his ministry among schoolchildren.