Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name. Beati is the plural form, referring to those who have undergone the process of beatification; they possess the title of "Blessed" before their names and are often referred to in English as "a Blessed" or, plurally, "Blesseds".
The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales or Cuthbert Mayne and Thirty-Nine Companion Martyrs are a group of Catholic, lay and religious, men and women, executed between 1535 and 1679 for treason and related offences under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation. The individuals listed range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged Popish Plot against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials, or with no trial at all.
Servant of God is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint.
During the Spanish Civil War Catholic people faced persecution from the Republican faction of the war, in part due to their support of the nationalists and the recently abolished monarchy. The Catholic Church venerates them as martyrs. More than 6,800 clerics and other Catholic people were killed in what has been dubbed the Red Terror. As of November 2023, 2,129 Spanish martyrs have been beatified; 11 of them being canonized. For some 2,000 additional martyrs, the beatification process is underway
A list of people, who died during the 20th century, who have received recognition as Blessed or Saint from the Catholic Church:
The Martyrs of Japan were Christian missionaries and followers who were persecuted and executed, mostly during the Tokugawa shogunate period in the 17th century. The Japanese saw the rituals of the Christians causing people to pray, close their eyes with the sign of the cross and lock their hands together – this was seen as psychological warfare against the Japanese and this was punished as such. More than 400 martyrs of Japan have been recognized with beatification by the Catholic Church, and 42 have been canonized as saints.
Laura Montoya, in full María Laura de Jesús Montoya Upegui, religious name Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena, was a Colombian Roman Catholic religious sister and the founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary and Saint Catherine of Siena (1914). She was well known for her work with Indigenous peoples and for acting as a strong role model for South American girls.
The cause for the canonization of Pope Paul VI, who died in 1978, commenced in 1993 and he was canonized on 14 October 2018. After having been proclaimed a Servant of God and declared Venerable, he was beatified on 19 October 2014, after the recognition of a miracle had been attributed to his intercession, and declared a saint by Pope Francis on 14 October 2018.
The Martyrs of Tlaxcala were three Mexican Roman Catholic teenagers from the Tlaxcaltec people of the modern state of Tlaxcala: Cristobal (1514/15–1527) and the two companions Antonio (1516/17–1529) and Juan (1516/17–1529). The three teenagers were converts from the Nahua religion of their families to the Catholic Church in Mexico and received their educations from missionaries of the Order of Friars Minor who baptized them while evangelizing in the area. Their activism and evangelical zeal led to their honour killings by fellow Tlaxcaltec people, including their close relatives, who detested their newfound faith and recognized them as dangers to their values and rituals.
The Martyrs of Natal were a group of 30 Roman Catholic people of Colonial Brazil – two of them priests – killed in the northern part of the colony in massacres that a large group of Dutch Calvinists led. One priest was a Colonial Brazilian Jesuit missionary, while the other priest was an evangelizer himself. The others were all lay Catholics, most of them anonymous members of the Church, some of them children.