Manuel Izquierdo Izquierdo, a diocesan priest aged 83 and parish priest of Villardompardo, was martyred in the Jaén town of Torredonjimeno on September 28, 1936. His life of pastoral dedication culminated in an atrocious ordeal, suffered for remaining faithful to his faith during the religious persecution unleashed in the Spanish Civil War.
Manuel Izquierdo was born in 1853 and ordained in 1891. For decades he served in rural parishes, arriving in 1921 at that of Our Lady of Grace in Villardompardo, where he pastored until the beginning of the conflict in 1936. He was already over 80 years old when anticlerical violence broke out in Jaén. Despite the risk, he did not abandon his parishioners. He remained in his post, aware of the danger but confident in his priestly duty. The revolutionary wave reached his town that summer: churches profaned, arrests and assaults on people for the mere fact of believing.
Arrested by militiamen, Father Izquierdo suffered a Calvary prior to his death. According to historical investigations, he was the object of humiliations and tortures before being executed: the revolutionaries forced him to ride a donkey for public mockery, knocked him down and mutilated him savagely before killing him. His martyrdom, consummated on September 28, 1936, was documented as particularly cruel, an extreme reflection of the antireligious hatred of those days.
Even in the face of such horror, Manuel Izquierdo did not renounce his faith. His testimony, now officially recognized by the Church, is a seed of fidelity. His figure, already venerated locally, underscores the victory of perseverance and charity over violence: an elderly priest who did not abandon his flock and sealed with his blood a life of service to God.