Pope Francis acknowledges the martyrdom of victims of the Argentine dictatorship.

Da RFI - The Vatican announced this Saturday (9) that it has recognized the martyrdom of four victims of the Argentine dictatorship, including a French priest. The decision paves the way for the beatification of those involved.

A decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints states that Bishop Enrique Angelelli, the French priest Gabriel Longueville, and two other Catholics who died in the 70s under the Argentine dictatorship, lost their lives as martyrs and will therefore be beatified.

On July 18, 1976, Longueville and the Argentinian Franciscan priest Carlos de Dios Murias were kidnapped and taken to an air base of the military regime. There, they were interrogated, tortured, and murdered. Their bodies, riddled with bullets, were only discovered two days later.

On August 4, 1976, Bishop Enrique Angelelli of La Rioja (central Italy) was the victim of a suspicious car accident while returning from a Mass celebrated in honor of two priests murdered by the military regime. Bishop Angelelli's death, initially treated as a traffic accident, was recognized as a murder in 2014. The person responsible for the crash was sentenced to life imprisonment. Before his death, the bishop had also received death threats because of his work on behalf of the poor.

In recognizing the martyrdom of these four victims of the Argentine military junta, the Holy See says they died "out of hatred for the faith," while the dictatorship claimed to be defending Christianity.

Between 1976 and 1983, tens of thousands of people were killed in Argentina, victims of repression, including many priests committed to serving the poor.