Georgia Martyrs declared Blessed during Mass in Savannah
The five missionaries were killed for their faith in 1597 in present-day Georgia after their defense of Christian marriage sparked a deadly persecution. Reflecting on their witness during the homily for their beatification Mass, the presiding cardinal said, “There are some things today that are still worth living and dying for.”
Marking the first beatification celebrated in the American South, the five Franciscan missionaries known as the Georgia Martyrs were declared Blessed Oct. 31 during Mass in Savannah, Georgia.
The martyrs, Father Pedro de Corpa and his four companions Brother Antonio de Badajoz and Fathers Blas Rodríguez, Miguel de Añón, and Francisco de Veráscola, were killed in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith) in 1597, after traveling to the Americas from Spain to serve as missionaries.
In a diocesan column ahead of the martyrs’ beatification, Bishop Manuel de Jesus Rodríguez of Palm Beach, Florida, explained that Father de Copra served the Guale people near present-day Darien, Georgia, as Zeale News previously reported. Father de Copra opposed the plan of Juanillo, a Guale leader who had been baptized, to take a second wife.
“His defense of Christian marriage became the spark for the persecution that would also claim the lives of his four companions,” Bishop Rodríguez wrote.
Father de Copra was martyred Sept. 14, 1597. His companions, who heroically remained with the community even as the violence spread, were martyred in the days that followed.
Cardinal Frank Leo, archbishop of Toronto, presided over their beatification liturgy, describing them as “shining witnesses of the Gospel,” according to Vatican News.
In the homily, he encouraged Catholics to renew commitment to evangelization and witnessing to the Gospel, and to pray and pursue efforts of reconciliation and charity, inspired by the martyrs’ witness.
According to Vatican News, in the homily Cardinal Leo “identified three principal aspects of the friars’ witness: their response to the universal call to holiness, their defense of human dignity and the sanctity of marriage and family, and their commitment to evangelization through dialogue and charity.”
Amid this dialogue and charity, the martyrs' witness also underscores their commitment to Christ and their courage, according to the cardinal.
“There are some things today that are still worth living and dying for," he said.
Cardinal Leo also noted that the Franciscan missionaries’ beatification falls during the U.S.’ 250th anniversary, as well as the 800th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi’s death, which has been declared a special Jubilee Year by Pope Leo XIV.
As Zeale News reported, Pope Leo commented in his Nov. 1 Angelus address about the Georgia Martyrs’ beatification, encouraging the faithful to ask for their intercession.
These martyrs, he said, “responded generously to the Lord's call to evangelize the peoples of the Americas, even to the point of giving their lives. Let us invoke the intercession of these martyrs for all missionaries of the Gospel.”
%20seeds_.jpg%3Fv%3D1793208368458&w=3840&q=75)
Comments