Marcelino Sánchez Fernández

Marcelino Sánchez Fernández, who took the religious name Marcelino of Saint Joseph, was a member of the Passionist congregation in Spain and one of the twenty-six religious of the Daimiel community killed in 1936 during the anti-clerical violence of the Spanish Civil War. He was born in 1910 in Santa Marina del Rey, a locality in the province of León in northwestern Spain. As a young man he entered the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ and was assigned to the monastery of Santo Cristo de la Luz at Daimiel in the province of Ciudad Real, a house that served both as a community of priests and brothers and as a formation center for students.

In the summer of 1936 the Passionist community at Daimiel numbered more than thirty members. After the outbreak of the Civil War in July, revolutionary militias in the Republican-controlled area of La Mancha turned against the Church. On the night of 21 July 1936 the monastery was invaded. The religious were seized and, over the following hours and days, were taken in groups from the house. Several of the priests were killed near Daimiel itself; others, including a number of the younger brothers and students, were transported to nearby towns.

Brother Marcelino was shot on 23 July 1936 at Manzanares. He was twenty-six years of age. Together with his twenty-five companions he is counted among the Martyrs of Daimiel. Their deaths formed part of the wider persecution of Catholics in the Republican zone in the first months of the war, in which thousands of bishops, priests, religious, and lay faithful were killed.

Pope John Paul II beatified the twenty-six Passionists of Daimiel together on 1 October 1989. The group is commemorated liturgically on 24 July. They are honored as martyrs who remained faithful to their religious consecration rather than renounce their faith. The former monastery at Daimiel remains associated with their memory.