P. Cándido Fernández Garcia, OP (1888-1936): A Scientist-Dominican on the Road to Sainthood*

A native of Murias in the municipality of Aller in the Principality of Asturias, Spain, he was born on May 7, 1888. Orphaned by both parents at a tender age of 6, he was adopted by the Garcia González family. After studying humanities in his hometown, and later in the Colegio de Ocaña in Toledo, Spain, he took the Dominican habit in the Convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán on May 10, 1903 in Ocaña, where he also made his simple profession on May 22, 1904. After studying Philosophy in Ocaña, he was transferred to the Convento de Santo Tomás in Ávila, where he made his solemn profession on May 26, 1907.

With four approved Theology courses and after having been ordained as deacon, he left for a new house of studies in Rosaryville, Louisiana, USA. He was sent to the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA to learn the English language and to study the Biological Sciences and Chemistry. After obtaining Master's degrees in both Biology and Chemistry, he was later ordained as a priest, and he embarked for Manila to be assigned in the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, where he obtained the title Lector de Filosofía on January 14, 1918. In the same year, he went to the Colegio de San Alberto Magno[1] in Dagupan, Pangasinan where he exercised teaching for three years from 1919 to 1922, before being transferred to the Colegio de San Jacinto in Tuguegarao, Cagayan, where he continued to teach subjects of his specialization until 1927. In addition to the cultivation of Science, he had other intellectual and apostolic concerns, as can be seen from his literary production.[2]

In 1926, he attended the Provincial Chapter of the Province of the Holy Rosary as a representative of the Dominicans who were in the Philippines but were "fuera de Manila” (outside of Manila); and in the middle of the following year, he was assigned to the Angelicum in Rome as a member of the faculty, although he resided in the house of the Province of the Holy Rosary in Via Condotti.

The students of Angelicum had high respects for him because he was an outstanding professor who had gifts of special clarity in explaining, proposing and solving problems at hand. These qualities, along with extraordinary kindness, made him very dear to all, both to his fellow teachers and students, earning the love and sympathy of everyone.

After every conclusion of the academic year, he used to visit Spain to enjoy the summer holidays in his native land. It was the month of July 1936 when he arrived in Barcelona in the company of Padre José García Diaz (1880-1936), a native of Asturias like him; a fellow professor at the Angelicum; and a religious of the same Dominican Province of the Holy Rosary.

In Barcelona, they fell into the power of the anarchic-communist militia men, together with the two religious assigned to the house of San Gervasio in no. 51, Zaragoza Street, Padre Florentino Fernández de Fuentes and Hermano Manuel Escabias Garcia, a cooperator brother (saving only Fr. León Yague, who was able to take refuge with some of his nephews), being cruelly murdered on July 27, 1936 on the Rebasada highway, without trial nor prior interrogation, for the crime of simply being a religious, if that would be a crime!

The group of P. Florentino, P. José, P. Cándido and Bro. Manuel is in line in the process of beatification.

Sources:

Actas del Capitulo Provincial de la Provincia Dominicana del Santísimo Rosario, año 1939.

Getino OP, Luís, Mártires Dominicanos de la Cruzada, 1950, pp. 386-387.

Bazaco OP, Evergisto, Mártires Dominicanos de la Revolución Española, Proceso Barcinonensis, Madrid, 1960.

[1] The Colegio de San Alberto Magno was the first sectarian school in Dagupan, which was once located in Calmay when it was still connected with downtown Dagupan by a bridge that spanned across the Calmay River until it was swept away by a big flood in 1934 and never reopened.

[2] Refutación de la Doctrina de la Iglesia Filipina Independiente, Manila, 1924; Spanish Grammar, Manila, 1928; several articles in ‘Unitas’ y ‘La Ciencia Tomista’; and printed lectures of various academic endeavors in Italian and French translated into Spanish (Actas 1939).