Father Tristany was shot to death.

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A contingent of Tucsonans, including Catholic Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, will travel to Rome this week to witness the beatification of two Carmelite priests who once worked in Southern Arizona.

The Rev. Lucas Tristany and the Rev. Eduardo Farré, both priests with the Discalced Carmelite Friars, will be among 498 martyrs of 20th century Spain who will be beatified in Rome Oct. 28.

Beatification is the second-to-last step toward sainthood.

At least 60 Tucsonans will be in Rome for the ceremonies.

"It has to do with the history of our founding pastor, Father Lucas Tristany, an individual willing to lay down the life for the gospel," said the Rev. Alonzo Garcia, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church here.

Garcia will be part of a group of 30 people from his church who will travel to Rome for the beatifications, set to take place at the Basilica of St. Paul.

Tristany became the first pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in 1915. He also served at Holy Cross in Morenci, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Florence and at Santa Cruz Catholic Church on Tucson's South Side.

Farré ministered at Holy Family and also at Santa Cruz. Both men became American citizens while they were in Arizona.

Both Tristany and Farré returned to Spain and died there in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, an era punctuated by strong anti-clerical sentiment.

According to research by the Rev. Jose Luis Ferroni, formerly the associate pastor at Santa Cruz, Tristany was shot in the back outside the Carmelite monastery in downtown Barcelona. He was 64. A mural commemorating Tristany can still be seen inside the sacristy at the Barcelona monastery, Ferroni said.

Farré was preaching a novena to Carmelite nuns in Tiana, Spain, in July 1936 when he received news of the war and urged the nuns to leave the cloister. Ferroni says Farré took refuge in a nearby home for several days until he was confronted by militia and told them he was a Carmelite friar. He was taken away in a large truck and was never seen again. He was 39.

The test for a religious martyr is someone who dies for their faith. While in some cases years can pass between beatification and canonization, the time period for martyrs is typically shorter. When a martyr is canonized to sainthood there is not the normal Vatican requirement of two miracles linked to the person's intervention.

Kicanas wrote this summer that the upcoming beatifications represent "an opportunity for intercessory prayer that the violence we experience in our world today because of political, economic or religious differences will cease."

A contingent of 33 nuns and lay people affiliated with the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters on the Northwest Side will also travel to Rome. Several of the martyrs set to be beatified Oct. 28 were members of the order, though none of them served in Southern Arizona.

A group from Santa Cruz parish is also expected to be in Rome, but parish officials could not be reached for comment Friday.