Leon Inchausti

León Inchausti was a Spanish Catholic priest of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and one of the martyrs of Motril, killed during the anticlerical violence of the Spanish Civil War. He was born in 1881 in Dima, in the Basque province of Biscay in northern Spain. As a young man he entered the Augustinian Recollects, making his religious profession in the late nineteenth century and receiving priestly ordination in the early twentieth century. Like many members of his congregation, he spent a substantial part of his ministry in the missions. He served in the Philippines and later in Brazil before returning to Spain, where he was assigned to the Recollect community in Motril, a coastal town in the province of Granada in Andalusia.

In Motril the Augustinian Recollects staffed pastoral work among the local population. When the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, Republican-controlled zones saw widespread attacks on the Church. Religious houses were raided, and clergy and religious were imprisoned or executed. The Recollect community in Motril was among those targeted in the first weeks of the conflict.

On 5 August 1936 León Inchausti was seized together with several of his confreres and put to death by militiamen. He died as part of the group later known as the Martyrs of Motril, whose members were killed in odium fidei amid the larger persecution of Catholics in that period of the war. Their deaths belong to the much wider martyrdom of clergy, religious, and lay faithful in Spain in 1936 and the following years.

Pope John Paul II beatified León Inchausti and his companions on 7 March 1999. They are commemorated liturgically on 5 August. As a Blessed of the Catholic Church he is venerated especially within the Augustinian Recollect family and in the Spanish regions connected with his birth, ministry, and martyrdom. He was never married and had no children, having lived as a professed religious and priest.