Madrid, Spain, Apr 29, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The cause for beatification of Dr. Maria Mullerat of Spain has advanced this week, as Archbishop Lluis Martinez of Tarragona announced the conclusion of the Archdiocesan investigation.
Four of Dr. Mullerat’s five children took part in the ceremony, as well as many other friends and acquaintances of the Spanish doctor who was killed during the first weeks of the Spanish Civil War.
Mullerat’s daughter, Maria, said the family was following the cause “with great excitement,” adding that although she was only 7 years old when her father was gunned down, she remembers “very much the life we had. He was a great example for us.”
“In our town of Arberca, he was the only man who went to church to pray during May, the month of Mary,” she added. Maria also said her father “loved to be at home and to play with us.”
Fr. Juan Siruana, one of Mullerat’s friends, called the doctor “wholly and completely Christian.”
“We spent many hours together, and he even cared for me when I was ill with the mumps. He was a very friendly and appealing person. That’s normal because a complete Christian is always attractive to others. When he came to Arberca, people began to like him right way,” recalled the 93 year-old Fr. Siurana.
In his remarks, Archbishop Martinez said Dr. Mullerat “lived the Christian life daily,” and he exhorted the faithful “to be present in the world, in their professions and in politics,” warning against dedicating themselves “exclusively to religious activity within the Church and forgetting about the sphere which pertains to the laity.”
Carles Farre, postulator of Mullerat’s cause for beatification, will turn the case over to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. He said the Association of the Friends of Maria Mullerat includes over 1000 members and that devotion to the doctor is widespread in eastern Spain.
Many witnesses to the holiness of Mullerat are still alive, said Farre, adding that they are “the most qualified people to speak about who Maria Mullerat was.”