Sainthood (canonization)sought for slain 16th-century friars (Martyrs in Georgia) (Catholic Caucus)

StarNewsOnline ^ | 4/7/2007 | Russ Bynum

[Pyro7480]

Sainthood sought for slain 16th-century Ga. missionaries

By RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press Writer

SAVANNAH, Ga. - The report took 23 years to compile, with each of its nearly 500 pages individually notarized to ensure authenticity, before the Rev. Conrad Harkins carried it across the Atlantic Ocean in a box sealed by the Catholic Diocese of Savannah.

Harkins arrived at the Vatican with the package in late March. After 410 years, five Spanish missionaries slain by Guale Indians on what's now the Georgia coast were on the path to possible sainthood.

The documents delivered by Harkins make up the official case urging the Roman Catholic Church to recognize the five Franciscan friars, killed in 1597, as martyrs - a first step toward having them canonized as saints.

"These people were regarded as martyrs when they died," Harkins said. "This case, despite the amount of time it has taken, is really very simple. You're either going to accept the historical documents, or you're not."

A historian at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, Harkins has overseen years of research into the friars' lives and deaths as vice postulator in the cause for their beatification.

Though the friars died centuries ago, researchers have uncovered original documents that tell the story of their deaths in detail, including letters to King Philip III written after the slayings and records of the investigation that followed by the governor of Spanish Florida.

Friar Pedro de Corpa had spent a decade before his death in the late 16th century as a missionary converting Indians to Christianity in Spanish Florida, which then included the 100-mile Georgia coast.

De Corpa was assigned to a mission near present-day Darien, Ga., when he infuriated the nephew of a Guale chieftain who planned to take a second wife. The friar admonished the nephew, a baptized Christian named Juanillo, and told him polygamy violated God's law.

On Sept. 14, 1597, Juanillo led warriors smeared in war paint to de Corpa's hut, where he was preparing for morning Mass. They killed the friar with stone clubs, severed his head and displayed it on a pike by a nearby river landing.

The warriors killed four more friars - Blas Rodriguez, Miguel de Anon, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Verascola - at St. Catherines Island and other nearby missions over the next several days.

Friar Pedro Fernandez de Chozas wrote to the Spanish governor at St. Augustine, Fla., on Oct. 4, 1597: "How they must have been lonely, Senor General, these little lambs, at the moment of martyrdom."

Beatification by the church, a lengthy process likely to take many years, would entitle the five friars to be called "blessed." But it requires proof of a miracle or martyrdom, meaning they died willingly at the hands of religious persecutors.

Harkins says it should be "an open and shut case."

If he's right, the friars would join a very short list of only three Christians the church recognizes as having been martyred within U.S. borders - fewer than half the number of U.S. saints.

The U.S. can claim just eight Catholic saints. Among them are the only beatified martyrs slain on American soil: three Jesuit priests killed in the 1640s by Iroquois Indians near present-day Auriesville, N.Y.

"In North America, we haven't had periods of persecution," said Lawrence S. Cunningham, a University of Notre Dame theology professor and author of the book "A Brief History of Saints." "You're not going to find any martyrs in the U.S. after the period of early exploration."

A key question is whether the Vatican will view the friars, who were slain in a dispute over polygamy rather than because they were Christians, as true martyrs.

Cunningham said there's some precedent for ambiguity in the church's definition of martyrs. Some have been beatified because they died upholding Christian values rather than out of hatred for the faith.

Soon after the friars were slain in 1597, fellow Franciscans likened their deaths to that of St. John the Baptist, who was beheaded after he criticized King Herod for marrying Herodias, his brother's former wife.

Bishop J. Kevin Boland, who heads the Diocese of Savannah, said the friars' defense of marriage resonates as strongly today as it did four centuries ago because of recent debates over same-sex marriage.

"Death resulted because of their unwillingness to water down the teaching of the faith," Boland said. "It's very timely in today's culture, where marriage is under horrendous attacks."

The story of de Corpa and the other slain friars languished for nearly 200 years after the predominantly Protestant English, who founded the colony of Georgia in 1733 at Savannah, had driven out the Spanish by 1763.

In 1941, U.S. bishops submitted to the Vatican a list of 118 early missionaries for beatification, but it went nowhere. In the 1950s, a new request was made, but limited to five - de Corpa and his companion friars.

The case for their beatification stalled until 1983, when Pope John Paul II changed the church's canonization procedures. The pope decided the process would start in local dioceses, rather than in Rome. The Diocese of Savannah took up the friars' cause in 1984.

Archaeologist Sheila Caldwell had helped renew interest in the friars in the 1950s when she excavated Fort King George near Darien. Caldwell believed she found remains of the Guale village from the Spanish mission period.

She also found a skull, which she thought was likely the severed head of de Corpa.

Last year, Harkins asked the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which had kept the skull, to lend it for forensic analysis.

Physical remains would have no bearing on whether the church beatifies the friars. It would be almost impossible to determine if the skull was de Corpa's, but Harkins wanted to put the story to rest if it could be proven untrue.

Last June, bioarchaeologist Christopher Stojanowski took the skull back to his lab at Arizona State University. He thought the de Corpa tale would be easy to debunk, that the skull's features would show it belonged to an old woman or a teenager.

He was wrong. Ten months later, Stojanowski still can't rule out de Corpa. The skull appears to be that of a man in his 30s, such as the friar. It also has damage that would be consistent with a head being smashed by a club and then impaled.

But the scientist says he's just getting started. He still wants to see if DNA tests, bone chemical analysis and radiocarbon dating can help narrow down the skull's age and ethnicity.

"There are a lot of people it could be, in addition to one of these friars," Stojanowski said. "Father Harkins told me, `We've waited 400 years. A couple of more won't matter.'"

___

On the Net:

The Five Franciscan Martyrs of Georgia

http://www.georgiamartyrs.org

Catholic Diocese of Savannah

http://www.diosav.org

[Pyro7480]

In North America, we haven't had periods of persecution," said Lawrence S. Cunningham, a University of Notre Dame theology professor and author of the book "A Brief History of Saints." "You're not going to find any martyrs in the U.S. after the period of early exploration."

Professor Cunningham is wrong about persecution. There may have not been any martyrs after the colonial era, but there was definitely persecution of Catholics. Catholics were booted out of public life in Maryland in 1689. Anti-Catholicism was widespread in 19th century America.

[Pyro7480]

Catholic ping!

[mockingbyrd]

Wow! Just what this country needs. Thanks for sharing!

[livius]

He was extremely wrong (but then, he’s at Notre Dame, famous anti-Catholic “Catholic” university).

I live in St. Augustine, which is where most of these missionaries were sent from initially. There was a mission chain that extended north along the coast to North Carolina, and west-north west almost to the Mississipi. It was staffed by Franciscans; the Dominicans and Jesuits had come to La Florida (the name of the entire Spanish territory at that point), but their missions were not successful and the Franciscans came in and had a fair amount of success.

However, the big problem was not the Guale, but the British colonists in the Carolinas. St. Augustine and the missions were destroyed at various times by Gov. Moore and Col. Palmer of S. Carolina and Oglethorpe of Georgia. Certain Indian tribes worked with them, but the British were actually behind it. They would go to remote mission outposts in Georgia and North Florida, attack them, kill the few soldiers posted there, and then round up the (Indian) inhabitants and priests, force them into the church, and set fire to it. And they did it just because the mission inhabitants were Catholics. Well, also because the British colonists were slavers and were angry because African slaves were considered freed if they reached St. Augustine, accepted Catholicism and were baptized.

The reason the canonization process never went very far in the US is that it made the British colonists look bad.

[Claud]

Indeed, and actually, there were American/Canadian martyrs after the age of exploration.

My personal favorites are four Iroquois Christians from the mission of Sault (i.e. Kateri’s mission) who were martyred by their pagan countrymen in the early 1690s...Étienne Teganannokoa, Françoise Gonannhaten, Marguerite Garangouas, and Étienne Haonhouentsiontaouet. Their deaths were actually predicted by Kateri after her death in a vision to her confessor.

You can read their stories here:

http://www.thelifeofkateritekakwitha.net/en/sisters_of_kateri/page4_e_teganannokoa.html

(hit “next” to read the other martyrs; if anyone wants more information on them I have booklets translated from the primary sources)

There’s also a list of the missionary martyrs printed in the old Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, which includes the friars of Georgia mentioned above: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10384a.htm

Here’s the list:

1542. Juan de Padilla, Franciscan, killed in Kansas (?).
1542. Escalona, Brother Luis de, Franciscan, killed by Pecos, New Mexico.
1542. La Cruz, Juan de, Franciscan, killed by Tigua, New Mexico.
1549. Luis Cancer, Dominican, killed by Calusa, Florida.
1549. Tolosa, Diego de, Dominican, killed by Calusa, Florida.
1549. Fuentes, Brother, killed by Calusa, Florida.
1566. Martínez, Pedro, Jesuit, killed by Yamasee, Georgia.
1569(?). Báez, Brother Dom. Agustín, Jesuit, died of fever, with Yamasee, Florida.
1571. Segura, Juan Bautista — Quiros, Luis de — Gómez, Brother Gabriel (novice) — Zerallos, Brother Sancho de (novice) — Solis, Brother — Méndez, Brother — Redondo, Brother — Linares, Brother — Jesuits, killed by Powhatan, Virginia.
1581. López, Francisco, Franciscan, killed at Tigua, New Mexico.
1581. Santa María, Juan de — Rodríguez (or Ruiz), Brother Agustín — Franciscans, killed at Tigera, New Mexico.
1597. Corpa, Pedro de Rodríguez, Blas Auñon, Miguel de Velasco, Francisco de Badajóz, Brother Antonio — Franciscans, killed by Yamasee, Georgia and Florida.
1613. Du Thet, Brother Gilbert, Jesuit, killed by the English, Maine.
1631. Miranda de Avila, Pedro, Franciscan, killed by Taos, New Mexico.
1632. Letrado, Francisco — Arvide, Martin de — Franciscans, killed by “Zipias”, New Mexico.
1633. Porras, Francisco, Franciscan, poisoned by Hopi, Arizona.
1642. René Goupil (novice), Jesuit, killed by Mohawks, New York.
1644. Joseph Bressani, Jesuit, tortured by Mohawks, but rescued, New York.
1646. Jogues, Isaac, Jesuit, killed by Mohawks, New York.
1653. Joseph Poncet, Jesuit, tortured by Mohawks, but rescued, New York.
1657. Eight Franciscans drowned, en route Florida missions to Havana.
1661. Menard, René, Jesuit, lost, supposed killed by Sioux, Wisconsin.
1675. “Several missionaries”, Franciscans (record incomplete), killed by Pueblos, New Mexico.
1675. Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit, died in woods, Michigan.
1680. La Ribourde, Gabriel de, Recollect, killed by Kickapoos, Illinois.
1680. Twenty-two Franciscans killed in general massacre by revolted Pueblos, New Mexico, and Arizona, viz.:
Talaban, Juan, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.
Lorenzana, Francisco Antonio de, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.
Montes de Oca, (Juan?) José de, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.
Pio, Juan Bautista de, Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico.
Torres, Tomas, Nambe Pueblo, New Mexico.
Luis de Morales, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico.
Pro, Antonio Sánchez de, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico.
Baeza, Luis de, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico.
Rendon, Matias de, Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico.
Mora, Antonio, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Pedrosa, Juan de, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Maldonado, Lucas, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.
Bal, Juan de, Alona (Zuñi) Pueblo, New Mexico.
Figueras, José de, Hopi Pueblos, Arizona.
Trujillo, José Hopi Pueblos, Arizona.
Espeleta, José de, Hopi Pueblos, Arizona.
Santa María, Agustín de, Hopi Pueblos, Arizona.
Bernal, Juan (custos), Galisteo (Tano) Pueblo, New Mexico.
Vera, Juan Domingo de, Galisteo (Tano) Pueblo, New Mexico.
Velasco, Francisco (Fernando?), de, Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Tinoco, Manuel, San Marcos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Jesus, Simon (Juan?) de, Jemes Pueblo, New Mexico.
1683. (circa) Beltran, Manuel, Franciscan, killed by Tanos (?), New Mexico.
1687. Zenobius Membré, Recollect — Le Clercq, Maximus, Recollect, Chefdeville, ____, Sulpician — killed by Karankawa (?), Texas.
1696. ____, ____, Franciscan, by Ais (?) (Tororo), killed Florida.
1696. Arbizu, José de, Franciscan, killed by Taos, New Mexico.
1696. Carbonel, Antonio, Franciscan, killed by Taos, New Mexico.
1696. Corvera, Francisco — Moreno, Antonio — Franciscans, killed by Tehua, New Mexico.
1696. Casañes, Francisco, Franciscan, killed by Jemes, New Mexico.
1702. Foucault, Nicholas, Sem. For. Missions, killed, by Koroa, Mississippi.
1704. Parga, Juan de — Mendoza, Manuel de — Delgado, Marcos — Miranda, Angel — Franciscans, tortured and killed by English and Indian allies, Florida.
1706. Delhalle, Nicholas, B.C., Recollect (parish priest, Detroit), killed by Ottawa, Michigan.
1706. St-Cosme, Jean-François de, Sem. For. Missions, killed by Shetimasha, Louisiana.
1708. Jacques Gravier, Jesuit, died of wound inflicted by Illinois (1705), Illinois.
1715. (circa) Vatier, Léonard, Recollect, killed by Foxes, Wisconsin.
1718. Mantesdoca (Mantes de Oca), Brother Luis de, Franciscan, killed in prairie fire, Texas.
1720. (circa) Mingües, Juan, Franciscan, killed in massacre by Missouri, Missouri (?).
1721. Pita, Brother José, Franciscan, killed in massacre by Lipan, Texas.
1724. Sebastien Rasle (Rasles, Râle), Jesuit, killed by English and Indian allies, Maine.
1729. du Poisson, Paul, Jesuit, killed by Natches, Mississippi.
1729. Souel, Jean, Jesuit, killed by Yazoo, Mississippi.
1730. Gaston, ____, Sem. For. Missions, killed by Illinois, Illinois.
1736. Senat, Antoninus, Jesuit, tortured and burned with whole party by Chickasaw, Mississippi.
1736. Aulneau (Arnaud), Jean-Pierre, Jesuit, killed with twenty others in massacre by Sioux, on Massacre Island, Lake of Woods, about two miles beyond the Minnesota-Canada line.
1752. Ganzabal, José Francisco, Franciscan, held by Coco (Karankawa), Texas.
1758. (circa) Silva, –, Franciscan, killed by mission Indians, Texas.
1758. Terreros, Alonso G. de — Santiesteban, José — Franciscans killed in massacre at San Sabá, by mission Indians, Texas.
1775. Jayme, Luis, Franciscan, killed by Diegueño, California.
1780. Díaz, Juan — Morena, Matias — Garces, Francisco — Barraneche, Juan — Franciscans, killed by Yuma, California.
1812. Quintana, Andrés, Franciscan, killed by Mission Indians, California.
1833. Díaz, ____, killed by Caddo (?), Texas.

Only a few of these have actually had their causes advanced...but they are a part of our history and it’s delightful to see interest in them starting to grow.

[Claud]

Thanks for that info, livius...very interesting.

Father Sebastian Rale in Maine as well, who was killed along with many of his Indian parishioners by British soldiers in the mid-1700s.

It’s not so much that we don’t have martyrs in this country...is that few people know about them!

[Kolokotronis]

“”You’re not going to find any martyrs in the U.S. after the period of early exploration.”

Here are a couple from after the early explorations. +Juvenaly of Alaska whom the Eskimos martyred in 1796 up in Alaska and +Peter the Aleut whom some Spanish priests tortured to death in California in 1815 for refusing to deny Orthodoxy and become a Latin.

[Kolokotronis]

“Father Sebastian Rale in Maine as well, who was killed along with many of his Indian parishioners by British soldiers in the mid-1700s.”

Fr. Rale was considered by the British colonials rather in the same vein that we consider OBL nowadays, as a spiritual and tactical leader of terrorists.

By the way, the road next to my parish church is named after Blessed Kateri Tekawitha. There is great devotion to her around here and a number of people have named their daughters after her.

[Claud]

Most Blessed Easter to you, Kolo!

I have been intrigued by the story of Peter the Aleut since someone first brought it up on FR...but while not at all questioning the piety of devotion to him, the story raises a historical eyebrow and I am interested in finding more about it:

http://www.umich.edu/~ocf/saint_peter_the_aleut.htm

Those priests (Franciscans?) are being accused of some very hideous (not to mention illegal/uncanonical) behavior!!! I’d like to see a competent historian try to track down what happened here.

Calling on any historians of the California Missions out there...any light that someone can shed on this?

[Kolokotronis]

Take a look at this article, by a Jesuit. It also contains a discussion of the conversion to Orthodoxy of the Eskimos by Russian orthodox missionaries.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2007/2007-3.html

[Claud]

Ah, Fr. Bucko! I corresponded with him once.

Thanks for the excellent find...I’ll read the article.

[ArrogantBustard]

Fr. Rale was considered by the British colonials rather in the same vein that we consider OBL nowadays, as a spiritual and tactical leader of terrorists.

That does not mean either that their 'consideration' was correct, or even if it was that the British were the 'good guys' in that conflict.

[Tax-chick]

Interesting. I recently read an article about the excavations at St. Catherine’s Island mission in “Archaeology” magazine.

[livius]

The British had no more right, and in fact, even less right - to those territories but considered everyone else to be interlopers.

The British actually arrived and settled well after the Spanish. The latter had sailed all the way up the Hudson, but hadn’t put down any permanent settlements because they considered the climate too cold and harsh for settlement. Technically, the Spanish had claimed it, but when the British arrived at Jamestown, the Spanish did not contest them because they weren’t very interested in the area and actually thought that the British would just establish a trading colony there and not be interested in doing much more than that.

The early settlement of the US was marked by constantly changing alliances between the Spanish, the French and the British; Germany and Russia occasionally participated, but they were not the major players. The different Indian tribes sided with one or another of these European players, although theirs was also a constantly shifting alliance. Religion played some part in this (particularly with the activities of the Huguenots, the French Protestants), but the Catholic missionaries and their converts were actually usually the victims of hostilities rather than the instigators of it.

[Kolokotronis]

"That does not mean either that their 'consideration' was correct, or even if it was that the British were the 'good guys' in that conflict."

Of course, history is written by the victors and history has not been kind to Fr. Rale. One thing is for certain, his indians did a pretty good job of wiping out English colonists in Maine for quite some time and he did a good job keeping the indians loyal to France. At any rate, once Norridgewock fell, although indian raids continued, they were on a much reduced scale and of course ended completely with the fall of Quebec to Wolfe. Personally, I'm VERY glad the British won the French & Indian Wars.

[Claud]

I confess to not knowing much about Rale...but as to him being an instigator, I can see why the British would think that, but from everything I have read (and I am pretty well versed in the Jesuit Relations) the Jesuits were in the missions purely as spiritual leaders and generally had no say in the politics of the tribes, save persuasion.

If the Abenaki went to war and committed massacres against the English, it was probably the Abenaki doing it. They were part of the “Seven Indian Nations of Canada” who were a sort of independent Catholic Indian confederacy with the Iroquois of Kahnawake as their central fire...I’m not sure at what stage the confederacy was at in 1720s but I’m almost positive the Abenaki mission would have been completely self-governing and only relying on Rale for the sacraments and for moral guidance.

[dangus]

OK, but we can pray for Newt Gingrich, too.
:^D

[dangus]

Oops... the article really DID mean Georgia, USA.

[Tax-chick]

LOL! I was surprised to see “our” Georgia, rather than Former Soviet Georgia, too :-).