Pere Tarrés i Claret

Having become a doctor, Pere Tarrés i Claret devoted himself to the poorest patients and became actively involved in Catholic Action. During the Spanish Civil War, he was mobilized as a doctor in the Republican army in 1938, treating the wounded on the Ebro front. This experience strengthened his vocation. He entered the seminary in 1939 and was ordained a priest on May 30, 1942. He exercised various pastoral functions in Barcelona and co-founded the Our Lady of Mercy clinic in 1947 to provide free care to tuberculosis patients and the destitute.

In 1950, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Pere Tarrés i Claret accepted this trial with heroic faith, offering his sufferings for the sanctification of priests. He died on August 31, 1950, at the age of 45 in the clinic he founded. His remains were transferred in 1975 to the church of Sant Vicenç de Sarrià. His cause for beatification was introduced in 1982, and he was proclaimed Venerable by John Paul II on June 22, 2004.

The beatification of Pere Tarrés i Claret is based on the unexplained healing, which occurred in the mid-1980s in Barcelona, of an 11-year-old child suffering from a severe viral encephalitis. After the promulgation of the decree recognizing this miracle on June 22, 2004, he was solemnly beatified on September 5, 2004, by Pope John Paul II on the esplanade of Montorso, near Loreto in Italy.

The spirituality of Pere Tarrés i Claret intimately unites his vocations as a doctor and priest in the service of the suffering Christ. His legacy is perpetuated through the Pere Tarrés Foundation (Fundació Pere Tarrés), originally created in 1957, which is today one of the most important non-profit organizations in Catalonia dedicated to leisure education and social action.