Blessed Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, OP: Bionote and Reflection

Who is Blessed Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, OP?

Ever since the old Gymnasium was replaced with the towering twelve-story structure along the P. Noval side of the campus, Thomasians have been wondering about the person after whom the Thomasian Alumni Center building was named: Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, OP.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI beatified 498 Martyrs of Spain in October 2007, in what has become the largest beatification ceremony in the history of the Catholic Church, adding to those martyrs of Spanish Civil War beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in the preceding years. Seventy-four (74) were Dominicans, mostly friars. Twenty-one (21) of them belonged to the Dominican Province of the Holy Rosary. Of these, eight (8) stayed for some time in the Philippines, and six (6) of them were Thomasians, of whom two (2) of them were personally known by our Rev. Fr. Pedro Tejero, OP, who celebrates his centennial birthday this year (30 August 2020): Beato Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, OP and Beato Manuel Moreno Martines, OP. 

Beato Buenaventura studied Theology, Civil Law, and Philosophy and Letters in Spain. He was sent to Manila and obtained the degree of Lector in Theology, and taught at the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomás, the Catholic University of the Philippines, which was, then in Intramuros. He was a professor of political and administrative law. He was the Director of the UST-published Catholic Newspaper “Libertas.” In 1910, he was elected Prior Provincial, which he held for seven (7) years. He was responsible for the procurement of the 21.5-hectare land in Sampaloc area, which the present UST campus stands. After his term, he want back to Spain to serve as the superior of a Dominican convent in Madrid.

In 1926, Fr. Paredes was elected as the Master General of the Order of Preachers. He was in Madrid when the civil war broke out. On August 11, 1936, he was arrested by armed men, and he bravely declared himself a priest and religious. He was taken to a place of torture, and in the morning of the following day, he was shot in the head. His rosary and breviary were found near his body. 

They are called "Martyrs of Spain" and not "Spanish Martyrs" because Spain was the site of their martyrdom and the homeland of many of them, but there were also some who came from other nations, in fact, from France, Mexico and Cuba. 

In any case, martyrs are not the exclusive patrimony of a single diocese or nation. Rather, because of their special participation in the Cross of Christ, Redeemer of the Universe, they belong to the whole world, to the Universal Church. 

We cannot be content with only celebrating the memory of martyrs but everyday we must be true to our names as Christians. After all, Christian life is a daily personal confession of faith in the Son of God made man, this consistency may in some cases even require Christians to pour out their blood. 

God calls each of us to be who we are. Christians are called to holiness (1 Cor 1:2; 1 Thes 4:7), that is, we are called to make our lives conform to the gift we have already received. Therefore, holiness consists of being true to the person God created; being holy means being our true self. Our vocation is to be saints. 

Whenever we go around UST and see or enter the edifice named after him, we must remember a faithful Thomasian who was true to his name Paredes (in Spanish, it means walls). He was indeed a fortified wall that never crumbled in the face of adversity and trial. He has acquired the highest degrees. He has held the highest positions but these degrees and positions are nothing as compare to the glory of Heaven. 

Rev. Fr. Louie R. Coronel, OP