Venerable Liberato Moralejo Juan (1875-1936)

November 1, 2026

By Columbia staff

November 1, 2026

Venerable Liberato Moralejo Juan (Courtesy of Dr. María Victoria Hernández Rodríguez, postulator / Archdiocese of Madrid)

Shortly after the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, militia members came to Liberato Moralejo Juan’s home to arrest his youngest son, a seminarian. He insisted that he would accompany his son wherever they took him.

Born in Valencia, Spain, Moralejo Juan was orphaned at 10 when his mother died of cholera; his father, a Civil Guard officer, had died while stationed in Cuba. After two years in the care of a retired captain, he entered a school for Civil Guard orphans in Valdemoro, near Madrid.

He rose through the military ranks, receiving decorations during the reign of King Alfonso XIII. He married Serafina Fernández Shaw, and the couple had four sons and a daughter, eventually settling in Madrid.

Amid growing anti-religious hostility in 1936, Moralejo Juan refused to sign a declaration supporting the left-wing Popular Front government against the military uprising.

His youngest son, Antonio Moralejo Fernández-Shaw, 19, had also drawn attention by trying to prevent a group from desecrating the Eucharist in a church. On Sept. 28, 1936, militia members arrested them at their home, citing their possession of religious and patriotic documents. During interrogation, Antonio acknowledged being a seminarian.

The father and son were taken to Madrid’s Modelo Prison, where they remained for more than a month. They were then transferred to Aldovea Castle in Torrejón de Ardoz, where they were executed together Nov. 8. Their remains were never identified, but they are believed to be buried in a mass grave in the Cemetery of the Martyrs of Paracuellos del Jarama.

Both men are set to be beatified alongside nine other martyrs of the Spanish Civil War on Nov. 28 at Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral.