On the 27th January 2025, the Holy Father Francis received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the Dicastery to promulgate the Decree concerning the recognition of the martyrdom of the Servants of God Pedro da Corpa and IV Compagni, religious of the Order of Friars Minor,murdered in hatred of the faith in the territory of the current Diocese of Savannha -USA in 1597.
The five Venerable Servants of God, all originally from Spain, responded generously to the Lord’s call to evangelize the peoples of America, even to the point of giving their lives.
Friar Pedro de Corpa was born in the small village of Corpa, in the diocese of Madrid-Alcalá, around 1560. He was a priest of the Province of the Friars Minor of Castile. In 1587 he embarked for Florida. He served the population in the village of Tolomato (near present-day Darien). Polygamy was in force among the native populations of these lands: in pastoral practice, the Franciscans had chosen to administer baptism to an equal adult only when he or she had committed himself to monogamous marriage. The crisis came when a young warrior, named Juanillo, a baptized and married Christian, decided to take a second wife. The situation was delicate as Juanillo, grandson of the tribal chief, was on his way to taking command of the village. Juanillo, rejecting Friar Pedro da Corpa’s warnings about the commitments made in baptism, left the mission and conspired with other natives of the interior region to eliminate the friar. In the first days of September 1597, the warriors attacked and murdered Fr Pedro de Corpa in his hut, they struck him with an axe and mutilated his body. The odium fidei was soon turned against the other four Friars Minor operating in the same territory, in different villages.
Friar Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos was born in the village of Cuacos (Cáceres – Spain), between 1550 and 1560. He was a priest of the Alcantarina Province of the Friars Minor of San Gabriel. In 1590 he had left for the Florida mission and at the time of the events he was working in the village of Tupiquí, near present-day Eulonia. In missionary work he shared the position against polygamy. When he found himself in front of the hostile band of rebels, aware of his imminent death, he asked to be able to celebrate his last Mass. After Mass, around the middle of September, he was barbarously murdered with an axe blow. His body was left abandoned in the woods and was devoured by beasts.
Friar Miguel de Añón, a priest of the Province of the Friars Minor of Castile, carried out his mission on the island of Santa Catalina, together with the lay religious Friar Antonio de Badajoz. The date of his birth in Zaragoza is uncertain. He faced the death, preceded by various tortures, together with his confrere Fr Antonio. His body was buried next to that of his confrere inside the village chapel.
Friar Antonio de Badajoz, a lay religious of the Alcantarina Province of the Friars Minor of San Gabriel, was born in L’Albuera, near Badajoz. After the outbreak of the revolt, the tribal chief of the island of Santa Catalina tried to warn him of the impending danger, but he did not accept, preferring to remain at the mission with Friar Miguel de Añón.
Friar Francisco de Veráscola was born on February 13, 1564 in Gordejuela, into a Basque family; he entered the Franciscan Province of Cantabria and left for the Florida mission in 1595. Here he was entrusted with the new mission of the island of Asao, today San Simón, opposite the current village of Brunswick, Georgia. His imposing stature and physical strength earned him the nickname “Cantabrian giant”. This characteristic made him popular amongst the gualeyouth, with whom he competed in wrestling, ball play and “throwing” spears. At the time of the death of his companions, he was not at the mission, but had gone by canoe to San Agustín, to take the necessary material for the chapel. Disembarking in Asao, he was immediately attacked by the rebels who murdered him with an axe blow.
The Cause of Beatification of this group of Franciscan martyrs, supported by the U.S. Episcopate, began in the Diocese of Savannah in 1981, as Postulator General of the Order of Friars Minor Br. Antonio Cairoli, OFM.
In the framework of the celebrations of the Eighth Centenary of the death of St. Francis 1226-2026, in the commemorative year of the Stigmata 2024, on Sunday 20 October Pope Francis will proclaim eight Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land, martyrs of the faith in Damascus in 1860, saints. They are accompanied in martyrdom and glory by the three blessed Massabki brothers, lay Maronites.
In July 1860, the persecution of Christians by the Shi’ite Druze in Lebanon spread to Syria. On the 9th July , the populous Christian quarter of Damascus was set on fire and the people put to the sword. Christians of various denominations and rites suffered all sorts of violence. That same night the Franciscan friary of St. Paul was also attacked. The eight religious who lived there – seven of Spanish nationality and one of Austrian nationality – together with three lay Maronite collaborators who had taken refuge there, were slaughtered for refusing to deny their Christian faith and embrace Islam. The bodies of the martyrs, pitifully recovered a few days after the massacre, were buried in a common tomb which, with the rebuilding and consecration of the friary church in 1866, became a destination of devotion by the Christians of Damascus.
The new saints of the Order of Friars Minor and the Maronite Catholic Church will be:
Manuel Ruiz López, Guardian of the friary; was born in 1804 in San Martín de las Ollas, Burgos, Spain. He entered the Friars Minor in 1825 and was ordained a priest in 1830. The following year he was sent to the Holy Land where, after learning the local languages, he carried out a fruitful apostolate. Forced to return to Europe in 1847 for health reasons, he returned to the Holy Land in 1858. On the night of the massacre, as soon as the rioters entered the friary, he ran to the church to consume the Eucharistic Species, and was slaughtered at the foot of the altar.
Carmelo Bolta Bañuls, parish priest, was born in 1803 in Real de Gandía, Valencia, Spain. In 1825 he was received among the Friars Minor and in 1829 he was ordained a priest. In 1831 he left for the Holy Land where he resided in the friaries of Jaffa, Damascus and Ain Karem at the Sanctuary of the Visitation. In 1851 he was transferred to Damascus as parish priest and teacher of Arabic.
Engelbert Kolland, parochial vicar, born in 1827 in Ramsau, Salzburg, Austria. He entered the Friars Minor in 1847 and was ordained a priest in 1851. He reached the Holy Land in April 1855. He carried out his missionary apostolate first at the friary of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, then in Damascus as assistant parish priest, where he was much loved by the people.
Nicanor Ascanio Soria, was born in 1814 in Villarejo de Salvanés, Madrid, Spain. In 1830 he entered the Friars Minor. Due to the suppression of religious, he was ordained a priest amongst the diocesan clergy. With the reopening of the College for the Missions of Priego di Cuenca, he was able to return to the Friars Minor in 1858. He arrived in the Holy Land in February 1859 and was assigned to the friary of Damascus. His readiness for martyrdom was a constant note of his spirituality.
Nicolás María Alberca Torres, born in 1830 in Aguilar de la Frontera, Córdoba, Spain. Already a religious amongst the Brothers of the Jesús Nazarene Hospital in Cordoba, he was received amongst the Friars Minor in 1856 and ordained a priest in 1858. Called to missionary life, he arrived in the Holy Land in 1859 and was assigned to the friary of Damascus to learn the Arabic language.
Pedro Nolasco Soler Méndez, was born in 1827 in Lorca, Murcia, Spain. After some work experience he was received at the age of twenty-nine amongst the Friars Minor in 1856 and ordained a priest in 1857. The following year he submitted a request for the mission of the Custody of the Holy Land, where he arrived on the 20th February, 1859. He was sent to the friary of St. Paul in Damascus where he spent just over a year.
Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, was born in 1802 in the village of El Chopo in Alpuente, Valencia, Spain. He was admitted to the novitiate of the Friars Minor in 1831. As a lay brother he held the office of sacristan until 1835, the year of religious suppression in Spain. In order to re-embrace community life, he opted for service in the Custody of the Holy Land, where he arrived in October 1843. For about 17 years he worked as a cook and tailor in various friaries. In the friary of Damascus, at the time of his martyrdom he was the sacristan.
Juan Jacob Fernández, was born in 1808 in the town of Moire, Ourense, Spain. In 1831 he entered as a lay brother amongst the Friars Minor. Unfortunately, the suppression of 1835 interrupted his experience of conventual life for a few years. In 1858 he asked to be associated with the Custody of the Holy Land. In 1859 he was serving as the cook at the friary in Damascus.
Francis Massabki, a Maronite Christian, silk merchant, was well known in Damascus and esteemed as an honest and pious man. He was married and the father of eight children. He gave an example of great generosity everywhere, especially towards the poor and needy. He was linked to the Franciscan friars for whom he acted as a proxy. Together with his brothers Mooti and Raffaele he was at the friary of St Paul at the hour of his martyrdom.
Mooti Massabki, lived with his wife and five children in the same house as his older brother Francesco. He attended the convent of St. Paul daily, both for prayer and to carry out teaching activities in the local school for the boys. Ready to shed his blood for Christ, as he taught in catechism lessons, he did not hesitate to offer his life in the name of faith. His two sons, Naame and Joseph, were pupils at the convent school at the time and were eyewitnesses to the martyrdom.
Raffaele Massabki, younger brother of Francis and Mooti, unmarried, gladly lent his help to his family and to the friars; he was very devoted to Our Lady and paused for a long time in prayer in the church of the friary. He was still present within the conventual walls of St. Paul on the night between 9th and 10th July 1860, when the Druze burst in, by whom he was murdered together with his two brothers.
In 1872 the Order of Friars Minor began the process for the beatification of Manuel Ruiz and the seven confreres. With a special procedure authorized by Pius XI at the request of the Maronite Patriarchate, the names of the three Massabki brothers, collaborators of the religious, were added to the group of Friars Minor shortly before the beatification. The rite was solemnly celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on the 10th October, 1926.
The resumption of the Cause has recently been determined by the observation of the ever-growing fame of martyrdom of the eleven Martyrs of Damascus and the spread of their cult throughout the world, particularly in the Maronite Church. Associated with this was the certainty that their canonization could constitute a message of dialogue, peace and unity in the Middle Eastern context, which was less and less serene and more and more agitated by the winds of war. To this end, the Holy Synod of Maronite Bishops in the year 2022 invoked from Pope Francis the canonization of the Blessed Massabki Martyrs, heroic exponents of Maronite lay holiness. The Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor and the Custos of the Holy Land also joined in the petition, emphasizing the aforementioned pastoral opportunities and in honour of the Eighth Centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi.
In the Consistory of the 1st July 2024, Pope Francis established that the solemn Canonization would come to pass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday the 20th October, 2024, World Mission Day.
Jacopone Benedetti was a prosperous lawyer in the Umbrian town if Todi. His life took a tragic turn one day when his young wife was killed in an accident. This terrible loss was compounded by the belated discovery of his wife’s piety. As she lay dying before his eyes, he loosened her gown and was surprised and deeply moved to find that she wore a secret hair shirt, a penance he believed she must have undertaken to atone for her own sins.
His world in ruins and his ambitions laid bare, Jacopone quit his profession, gave away all his belongings, and became a public penitent- to all appearances, a kind of wandering fool. For ten years he maintained this life of aimless poverty and penance. Then, at the age of forty-eight, he knocked on the door of the Franciscans and applied for admission.
Remarkably, in joining the Franciscans he also found a new voice as a poet – indeed, one of the great lyric poets of the Middle Ages. In the passionate language of love, his mystical poems described the soul’s yearning for Christ. But they retained a mournful undertone, the accent of a faith born in loss. Among his most famous poems is the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, a heart-breaking meditation on the sorrows of Mary at the foot of the cross.
At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last:
Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
All His bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had passed.
Jacopone was a leader of the Spirituals, a Franciscan party dedicated to the most radical form of apostolic poverty. The Spirituals ran into conflict with the worldly Pope Boniface VIII, whose legitimacy they challenged. After addressing a bitter manifesto to the pope, Jacopone was imprisoned for five years. Only after Boniface’s death was he freed to live out the rest of his life as a hermit. He died on Christmas day in 1306.
Adam Chmielowski was born in Poland to an aristocratic family. At seventeen, he lost a leg while participating in a nationalist uprising. Afterward, he was drawn to art and began to enjoy recognition for his painting. At the same time, living in Krakow, his heart was increasingly moved by the sufferings of the poor. He finally gave up his life as an artist to assume the life of a poor beggar. With the name Brother Albert, he donned a gray robe and became a Third Order Franciscan.
In time he founded orders of men and women, known as the Albertine Brothers and Sisters, who practiced the works of mercy in soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In one of the shelters that he founded, Brother Albert died in Christmas day, 1916.
His reputation lived on. Among the priests who attributed their vocation to his example was Karol Wojtyla, who in 1949 wrote a play about him. Years later, as Pope John Paul II, he championed Albert’s cause and later presided over both his beatification and, 1989, his canonization. He said of St. Albert, “In his tireless, heroic service on behalf of the marginalized and the poor, he ultimately found his path. He found Christ. He took upon himself Christ’s yoke and burden; he did not become merely ‘one of those who give alms,’ but became the brother to those he served.”
Frances Schervier, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, was born in Aachen. Upon the death of her mother when Frances was thirteen, the young girl assumed responsibility for the household and the care of her younger siblings. With other women in Aachen she engaged in various charitable projects, visiting prisoners, caring for the sick in their homes, and rescuing prostitutes. In 1844, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis.
In 1845, following the death of her father, she joined with several other women to form a religious community, the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis. They established soup kitchens and fearlessly cared for those suffering from typhoid, cholera, and smallpox. Eventually, Frances sent sisters to America, where she visited in 1863 and offered her service as a nurse during the Civil War. Returning to Germany, she joined her sisters in nursing soldiers and staffing ambulances during the Franco-Prussian War.
She died in December 14, 1876. Her beatification followed in 1974.
Benedetta Rossello was born to a large, poor family on the Ligurian coast of Italy. Lack of a dowry frustrated her desire to enter religious life. Instead, she became a Third Order Franciscan and entered domestic service to a wealthy family, sending all her earnings to her family.
When she heard that the bishop of Savona wished to do something for the girls and young women at risk of abuse, she volunteered for service. The bishop recognized her gifts and readily agreed to set her up with three companions in a rundown house. They took the name Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, and Benedetta, who would serve as superior for the rest of her life, became Maria Josepha.
Despite their poverty, they quickly attracted new recruits. Remembering her own sad experience, Mother Maria decreed that no worthy woman should be turned away for lack of a dowry. At first, the sisters founded a series of homes – Houses of Divine Providence – for girls in trouble. But schools and hospitals followed, and in 1875, the first foundation was established in Argentina
Mother Maria never scorned the most humble tasks. But then when illness left her unable to walk, she could do no more than oversee the work of her sisters.
“There are God, the soul, eternity. The rest is nothing.”
She died on December 7, 1880. She was canonized in 1949.
