From Fr. Mark-November 8

  It has been only a few weeks since the Beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Many have been able to participate in person or streamed the Proclamation of Beatification and the Mass of Thanksgiving that followed.

            BUT DID YOU KNOW?

The Beatification Mass of Thanksgiving for the Georgia Martyrs (Friar Pedro de Corpa, Friar Blas Rodríguez, Friar Miguel de Añon, Friar Antonio de Badajóz, Friar Francisco de Veráscola, and Friar Francisco de Ávila was celebrated this past week on Saturday, October 31, 2026 in Savannah, Georgia. Cardinal Frank Leo, Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto, represented the Holy Father as Papal Legate and preside over the beatification liturgy.

            What is the story behind the Georgia Martyrs?

By 1597 there were five Franciscan missions in the Guale territory of coastal Georgia: Tolomato (Friar Pedro de Corpa), Tupiqui (Friar Blas Rodríguez), Guale (Friars Miguel de Añon and Antonio de Badajóz), Asao (Friar Francisco de Veráscola), and Talapo/Tulufina (Friar Francisco de Ávila).

            For two years, the friars lived peacefully among their hosts and received many of them into the Catholic faith. Peace was broken in Tolomato, however, when Friar Pedro de Corpa didn't permit don Juanillo, a baptized Christian and heir to the office of mico mayor – head of the chiefdom – to follow Guale custom by taking a second wife. With his leadership and possibly his inheritance in jeopardy, Juanillo decided to eliminate the friar, killing him on September 14, 1597. Juanillo then assembled a war party and continued to the other Guale missions, killing all of the friars except Francisco de Ávila, who was kidnapped and tortured until St. Augustine’s governor secured his release ten months later. In the ensuing trial, he refused to testify against his attackers, knowing it would mean their deaths.

            Several weeks after the murders, the governor of Spanish Florida received a letter from a friar stationed at the mission of San Pedro de Mocama (Cumberland Island), reporting an unsuccessful Guale-led attack there. The attacking Indians claimed that they killed all the Franciscans in the Guale territory, and the letter included proof: a Franciscan habit.

            The governor obtained witness statements from the two resident friars and the Indians involved in the assault, and then sent his soldiers out to the five Guale missions. The soldiers attacked any Indians they found, burned to the ground whatever buildings remained, and collected what items they could to confirm the deaths of the friars. The bodies of Friars Blas Rodríguez, Miguel de Añon, and Antonio de Badajoz were found in shallow graves, but they weren't transported to St. Augustine because of their state of decay. Friar Miguel’s head and some small bones were recovered, along with the tonsured scalp of an unidentified friar. A breviary, missal, vestments, and a chalice were also located.

            In May 1598, the governor met with the chief of Escamacu (in present-day South Carolina), where he learned that Friar Francisco de Ávila was still alive. Two months later, after negotiations with the Guale at Tolomato, the governor returned to St. Augustine with Friar Ávila and seven Indian captives who had been brought in for questioning, including Lucas, the son of Tupiqui’s cacique. Under threat of torture, Lucas testified that a primary motive for the friars’ murders was their insistence on monogamous marriages, and confessed to being present at the murder of Friar Blas. Four other witnesses testified to the same motive. Lucas was sentenced to death, and was hanged on July 29, 1598. The other Indian witnesses were distributed as personal servants among Spanish officials.

            In October 1601, the governor convinced don Domingo, the cacique of Asao, to assemble a war party of 500 Indians, including the caciques of Tulufina, Guale, La Tama, Espogache, and Talapo, to kill don Francisco and don Juanillo, who were in hiding at the interior village of Yfusinique. The war party was successful and returned to St. Augustine with don Juanillo’s scalp.

            Why Were They Killed?

The courageous defense of truth by the Georgia “Martyrs” makes them witnesses for 21st-century America. They died for the sanctity of marriage. The catalyst for their death was their refusal to allow a baptized Catholic to take a second wife.

            It was the practice of the friars to explain Christ’s teaching on the unity and indissolubility of marriage to candidates for baptism. Thus when a young convert named Juanillo, a candidate for the role of chief among the Guales, made clear his intention to take a second wife, Fray Pedro exhorted him not to do so, saying that if he persisted, the friars could not lend their support to his desire to be chief.

The “Martyrs” of Georgia are martyrs for the sanctity of marriage. This is exactly what the friars declared to the king in 1612:

“In the early days we experienced great hardships along with threats of death. On various occasions they tried to kill us – as indeed in the Province of Guale they did slay five friars and capture others. Though they did not kill them because of doctrine, it is certain that they slew them because of the Law of God which we were teaching them and because of our moral precepts. . . .

“Specifically they slew them because we would not consent that any married Christian should have more than one wife. It was for that very reason, and no other, that John the Baptist was beheaded – for he had reproved Herod for that very same thing.”

A Witness Much Needed Today

The “Martyrs” of Georgia bore heroic witness to the sacredness of marriage, that sacredness taught by Jesus the Lord, declared by the Second Vatican Council, defended by Pope Paul VI, and explained by Pope John Paul II. The latter called for heroic witness to the splendor of truth:

“Fidelity to God’s holy law, witnessed to by death, is a solemn proclamation and missionary commitment usque ad sanguinem (unto the shedding of blood), so that the splendor of moral truth may be undimmed in the behavior and thinking of individuals and society”(Veritatis Splendor, no. 93).

But why the recognition? Canonizing martyrs does not increase their happiness, but the recognition of their witness to the faith moves us to imitate their courage. No one would deny that we need such a witness.

            We also need their intercession. Remember the words of the friars in 1612: “It is the pious belief that these blessed ones are in God’s presence, interceding for the conversion of this land.”

            The land is still here, stretching from sea to sea, filled with peoples from many nations, and always in need of conversion.