Pedro María Ramírez Ramos

Pedro María Ramírez Ramos (23 October 1899 – 10 April 1948) was a Colombian Roman Catholic priest killed during the outbreak of the Colombian civil war known as La Violencia. He served as the pastor of Armero, where he was stationed until his murder in 1948. The outbreak of the conflict saw families offer to smuggle him out of the town for his safety, which he refused, saying that he would not abandon his people in their hour of need. But liberal insurgents – who saw him as an instigator of the assassination of a leading national politician – burst into his church and took him to the central square where he was lynched and mutilated.

The cause for Ramírez' canonization was opened in 1993. His beatification was approved in July 2017 by Pope Francis,

Life

Ramírez was born on 23 October 1899 in La Plata to Ramón Ramírez Flórez and Isabel Ramos. He was baptized the next day in the local Parish Church of St. Sebastian. It was at that church that he also made his First Communion.

Ramírez' initial education was overseen in his local village. He attended high school at the Minor Seminary of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in Elias, Huila. He celebrated his First Mass at his home parish in St. Sebastian Church on the following 16 July.

Beatification Pope Francis approved the cause on 7 July 2017 and thus approved the late priest's beatification. Francis himself presided over the beatification during his papal visit to Colombia at an open-air Mass on 8 September 2017 at Catama Field in Villavicencio.