Victoria Díez Bustos de Molina

In Hornachuelos, Victoria Díez invested herself body and soul in her mission as a public schoolteacher. She taught many young girls and also took care of the social advancement of rural women through evening literacy classes intended for female workers. In close collaboration with the parish priest, Antonio Molina Ariza, she organized parish catechesis, led Catholic Action youth groups, and provided constant material aid to the most destitute families by collecting food, clothing, and medicine. With the advent of the Second Spanish Republic and the rise of political and religious tensions, local authorities imposed restrictions on her. When the order was given to remove crucifixes from classrooms, Victoria refused to deny her faith and took the crucifix home with her. She also opposed the dissemination of anti-religious propaganda at school by confiscating and destroying brochures contrary to the Christian faith in order to protect the moral formation of her students.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 dramatically worsened the religious persecution. On July 20, 1936, the parish church of Hornachuelos was attacked and the priest was arrested. Victoria, aware of the danger, chose to remain with her community and her mother.

On August 11, 1936, two armed men burst into her home and arrested her. She was taken to an improvised detention center, separated from a group of seventeen men who had also been captured. During her captivity, she refused to renounce her faith despite the pressure.

On August 12, 1936, around two in the morning, Victoria and the seventeen men were forced to begin a march of approximately 12 kilometers toward a disused mine located near Hornachuelos. Throughout this painful journey, she supported and encouraged her companions in misfortune by telling them: "Courage, forward, Christ awaits us!" ("Ánimo, adelante, Cristo nos espera").

Upon arriving at the place of execution, the prisoners were shot one by one at the edge of the mine shaft. Victoria was executed last. Her executioners offered to spare her life if she would shout "Long live communism," but she refused and exclaimed: "I say what I think: Long live Christ the King!" ("¡Viva Cristo Rey!") before being shot at dawn. Her body was thrown into the mine shaft with those of the other victims.

In November 1936, the bodies of the martyrs were removed from the mine shaft and buried in the Hornachuelos cemetery. Thirty years later, on December 11, 1965, the remains of Victoria Díez were transferred to the crypt of the Teresian Association house in Cordoba, where they are still venerated.

The cause for the beatification of Victoria Díez was officially opened in the diocese of Cordoba. The diocesan informative process took place from 1962 to 1963, and the validity of the process was decreed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on March 11, 1988.

On July 6, 1993, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing her martyrdom in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith).

Victoria Díez Bustos de Molina was solemnly beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1993, in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, during a joint ceremony with the founder of the Teresian Association, Pedro Poveda Castroverde.

The spirituality of Victoria Díez is deeply rooted in the charism of the Teresian Association, characterized by a life of intense prayer lived in the heart of daily and professional realities. She conceived her work as a teacher not as a simple profession, but as a true mission of evangelization and social transformation through culture. Her total offering is summarized by a sentence she wrote in her spiritual notes: "If it is necessary to give one's life to identify with Christ, our divine model, from today I cease to exist for the world, for my life is Christ and to die is gain for me." Today, she is considered a model of lay holiness and Christian educational commitment. Her legacy is perpetuated through the works of the Teresian Association throughout the world, and several educational and theological institutions bear her name, notably the "Beata Victoria Díez" Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Córdoba.