María del Carmen González-Valerio

Who they were

María del Carmen González-Valerio y Sáenz de Heredia was born in Madrid on 14 March 1930. She made her first Communion on 27 June 1936. That year her father, who had defended Catholic parents' right to educate their children in the faith, was arrested and shot; she forgave his killers and prayed for their conversion. The family took refuge in San Sebastián, where she was a pupil of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart and then of the Irish sisters at Zalla.

She secretly offered herself as a victim to Jesus. After three months of painful illness, borne with patience and prayer, she died on 17 July 1939, aged nine. Pope John Paul II declared her heroic virtue on 12 January 1996.

The miracles

The Church has not yet approved a miracle in this cause.

Why that counted as sanctity

A child of nine whose heroic virtue the Church has recognised; she forgave the men who killed her father.