The Spanish martyr San Pedro Poveda, murdered during the religious persecution that broke out before and during the Spanish Civil War, was characterized as a man intolerant of discouragement who was the promoter of a large number of educational and welfare projects wherever his ministry took him. . Among them, he started a school for the “gulfs”, the name given to street children in his time.
The festival that commemorates his baptism of blood is celebrated every July 28, when mobs of anti-clerical republican militiamen in Spain just ten days after the outbreak of the fratricidal conflict in Spain.
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We offer some essential information about his life, work and martyrdom.
1. He founded the Teresian Institution
The great work of San Pedro Poveda was the Teresian Institution, which owes its name to the first academy of the many established. Founded in Oviedo in 1911, it was named after Saint Teresa of Ávila.
In 1917 the Bishop of Jaén, Monsignor Rey Lemos, approved the work of the academies as an association of the faithful. Already in 1924 the institution received definitive approval from Pope Pius XI as a Pious Union. In 1928 the work of Father Poveda reached Chile and in 1934 to Italy. Today they have a presence in thirty countries in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
The Teresian Institution is a society of lay people whose mission is to “bring the good news of education and culture to society” in which women played a relevant role.
2. The Virgin of Carmen, present in her life and death
July 16, the day of the Virgin of Carmen, was an important date in the life of the martyr, since the first approval of the Teresian work was signed in Jaén and the first stone of the Schools of the Sacred Heart in Guadix (Granada) was laid. ).
His devotion was permanent. In fact, on the day of his murder out of hatred for the faith, the women who collected his body noticed how one of the three bullets they shot at him at point-blank range pierced the scapular of the Virgin of Carmen that he was carrying.
3. Accused of “being a very big fish”
His brother Carlos accompanied him in the first hours after his arrest in Madrid. After going through several courts in which the priest always answered “I am a minister of the Lord,” they were separated.
“Goodbye, Carlos! God wants me to be a founder and a martyr; you, save yourself. Don’t be afraid,” he told his brother. And to those who led him, following Christ before the Sanhedrin, he said: “If you don’t know me and I have done nothing to you, why are you arresting me?”, to which the militiamen replied: “You are a very big fish, that you do a lot of harm to our people. You are a very dangerous half-bishop.”
4. He was able to confess before being murdered
While detained at the headquarters of the General Confederation of Workers, Father Poveda met another priest, Father Julio Barcia.
They both recognize each other and introduce themselves. The future martyr asks for Confession before being subjected to the umpteenth mock trial in which he is accused of being “half a bishop.”
He defends his work and points out that it is intended to defend Catholic teaching.
5. He lived in a cave
Being an almost recently ordained priest, and despite his many pastoral and ecclesiastical duties, Saint Pedro Poveda feels a very strong call to meet the people who live in some caves near Guadix, in Granada (Spain).
At first they received him with stones, but little by little he managed to win over the people of that place to the point that he became another neighbor, living in a cave. His work was recognized with the title of Guadix’s adopted son and they named a main street after him.
This fame aroused misgivings among his fellow ministers and in the Bishopric, so he had to leave: “I made the decision to leave after much discernment and giving priority to the well-being of others and my own,” he wrote in his diary.
6. He devised a popular school for gulfs
After his forced departure from Guadix, he ended up in Linares, province of Jaén, where he stayed to live with his family. The circumstance meant that he could not exercise his ministry normally. In order not to be a burden on his parents, he began teaching classes.
For eight months, however, he did not leave his attention to those in need and devised the founding of an asylum-school for the so-called “gulfs”, street children, which finally did not come true due to lack of funds.
The purpose of the project was “to collect, educate, instruct and give honest work to young people between ten and twenty years old.”
7. In Asturias they nicknamed him “Don Pedrín”
Father Poveda arrived in Asturias in 1906 to fill a vacancy in the sanctuary of Covadonga, in the north of the country, where the founding feat of Spain against the Muslim invasion in the 8th century is located.
The character of the people of Asturias and the Andalusian differ in some essential features. However, Father Poveda gradually came to grips with it, to the point that he was always remembered as “Don Pedrín.”
In exchange, he acquired the accents and phrases of Asturian speech, which he even incorporated into his writings.
The influence of the Virgin of Covadonga in the founding of the Teresian Institution survives today. Every year, since 1934, an act of gratitude is held to the Santina, to whom the fruits of the activities carried out are presented.
8. Created the first female university residence in Spain
One of Father Poveda’s great pastoral concerns was education. And for this reason he founded numerous institutions where he carried out his work, whether in Guadix, Linares, Covadonga or Madrid.
Thus, it promoted the Catholic Educational Institution and numerous female Academies, which were the seed of the Teresian Institution. Barely 15 years after its foundation, it already had 12 located throughout Spain.
He was part of the National Board against Illiteracy and the Federation of Friends of Teaching. She launched the Catholic Students Association and the Women’s League of Orientation and Culture.
San Pedro Poveda was the promoter of the first female university residence in Spain already in 1914.
Her concern for the education of women was notable. Five years before her martyrdom, he wrote:
“The intellectual world is the world of the future and if a few years ago the female student followed a safe path, today so much effort is put into denaturalizing and de-Christianizing young women that desertions are becoming frequent, and impiety is spreading among female students. and those who, due to their studies, their knowledge, their culture, should be models in all areas are becoming morally deformed.”
This news was originally published on July 27, 2022.
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.