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1877-1936, Beatified 2013
Salvio Huix i Miralpeix was born on December 22, 1877 in Santa Margarida de Vellors in the Diocese of Vic in Catalonia. He was ordained a priest in 1903, and four years later entered the Congregation of the Oratory of Vic, where for twenty years he lived the Oratorian life of prayer, teaching the Catholic faith and administering the sacraments. He was the Provost of the Vic Oratory when, in 1927, he was named Bishop of Ibiza. Transferred to the Diocese of Lérida in 1935, he was well known for his effective apostolic work.On July 21, 1936, Republican forces broke into the Episcopal palace and Bishop Miralpeix, reluctantly and in order to safeguard his associates, took refuge with friends. Seeing the dangers to which his helpers were exposed, on the night of July 23, he left his hideout and presented himself to the police, revealing his true identity. He was imprisoned at once, together with other prisoners with whom he shared both sufferings and also the joy of secret prayers and Masses, right up to the last moving Holy Communion which proved to be their Viaticum.
At 4:30 on the morning of August 5, the prisoners were all of them taken to the local cemetery and shot. The bishop asked that he might be the last to be killed, so as to give absolution and comfort to his companions in martyrdom. Before his arrest, he entrusted his pectoral cross to a friend, asking him to take it to the Holy Father in Rome, for whom he was offering his life and to assure him of his loyalty.
The beatification of Bishop Miralpeix, the first Oratorian martyr, took place in Tarragona, Spain, on October 13, 2013.
Text adapted from the website of the Oxford Oratory