First part of beatification of victims of 1950's political trial completed

The first part of the process of beatification of Czech priests Jan Bula and Václav Drbola, who were sentenced to death and executed in 1951, has been completed. The process will now continue in Rome. Eleven men, including the two priests, were executed in one of the most controversial show-trials of the period, which followed the shooting of three communist officials in the village of Babice in South Moravia in July 1951 and which the Stalinist authorities used as an excuse for widespread reprisals.