Pope Leo XIV officially recognizes the martyrdom of 50 French people who died under Nazism between 1944 and 1945

In a decree of the dicastery of the causes of the saints published on Friday June 20, Léon XIV recognized the martyrdom of 50 French, who were “priests, religious and lay people engaged in Catholic associations”. Their cause for beatification carried by the diocese of Paris was opened in 1988.

On the list put online by the official site of the Dicastery, notably appear Father Raymond Cayré (1915-1944), priest of the diocese of Albi, which was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he died at 29 years old, brother Franciscan Gérard Martin Cendrier, died at 25 years in the same camp, the seminarian of the Norman diocese of Sées, Roger Valley and Laïc Jean Mestre (1924-1944). The latter was a turner-up worker, engaged in the JOC, the youth Christian workers.

“They were arrested for subversive activity against the third Reich and tortured. Most died in concentration camps, ”also specifies the decree. The formal recognition of their martyrdom directly opens the way to their beatification.