slovenia

Slovenian students, who were arrested, tortured and killed by the Communists during World War II on Sunday beatified by Pope Benedict XVI to the Secretary of State, participates in the Mass of thousands. Lojze Grozde, who died at 20 years, the first martyr, beatified in predominantly Roman Catholic country, where the church was suppressed. Grozde, a high school student, was arrested in January 1943, when Slovenia was occupied by Italy and Germany. Communist-run anti-fascist rebels - known as partisans - were allegedly in possession of a Latin prayer book, and accused him of collaboration with the Italian fascists. His mutilated body was found a month later in a forest.

Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of the Holy See, Grozde declared a martyr of the faith of believers in the 32,000 and 750 priests - many foreigners - a football stadium in Celje. The Church in Slovenia, the goal is "aggressive pursuit" of the past, the single source of support, strength and comfort "to the Slovenes, the state news agency STA Bertone quoted as saying. After the Second World War, the country's 2 million was a part of the communist-ruled Yugoslavia. The church was returned to power in 1991, when Slovenia declared independence.Slovenia began the beatification process in 1992, and the Vatican's Congregation for the causes of saints, and concluded that sufficient evidence of the result of hostility to the Catholic martyr at the time.The beatification, the pope said at the beginning of the year, based on evidence that Grozde have died in the faith.