America’s first martyrs for marriage: The Georgia Martyrs declared ‘blessed’

SAVANNAH – More than 400 years ago, Friars Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez, Miguel de Aňon, Antonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Veráscola surrendered their lives standing for the sanctity of marriage.

“We do well to lovingly speak their names, for they are holy members of the family of God,” said Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto while declaring them “blessed” on Oct. 31 in Savannah.

It was a milestone for the Catholic Church in America: The Georgia Martyrs are the first American martyrs for marriage and the first to be beatified in the southern U.S.

Approximately 9,000 people streamed through the doors of the Savannah Convention Center, breaking city attendance records for an indoor event. They traveled from all over Georgia, the U.S., and around the world, arriving by bus, car, and trolley. Some ferried across the Savannah River. Others flew, including priests and lay Catholics representing the hometowns of several friars.

María Isabel Inoriza De Villota, a 12th generation descendent of one of Friar Francisco’s brothers, came from Spain with her 16-year-old son, Imanol.

“Ever since I was a child, I have witnessed the deep devotion my parents held for Francisco,” she said. “We have always turned to him, seeking his protection and help.”

Her mother prayed “fervently” for the beatification, which is “a dream come true,” she said.

Father Pablo Migone, the vicar for mission advancement in the Savannah Diocese and a longtime promoter of the cause, said 2,000 attendees “tops” were projected. But registrations kept pouring in.

U.S. beatifications are rare. But it was more than that. The diocese has been educating the faithful about the martyrs for a decade. “The fruit and the story are resonating in people’s hearts and minds,” Migone said.

Until learning of the beatification, many residents of La Albuera, Spain, where Friar Antonio was baptized, hadn’t heard of him. Now the town square is being renamed in his honor.

“God is full of surprises,” said Father Antonio Jesús Marín Romo, the town’s parish priest. “This comes at a crucial moment when we were in need of a catalyst for the work we wish to begin in the parish.”

The Franciscans’ story began in the 16th century when they arrived from Spain. By 1595, they had established missions along the Georgia coast, evangelizing the Indigenous Guale people. Serving like Peace Corps volunteers, they succeeded where other orders had failed.

Two years later, however, faith clashed with local custom. A baptized convert in line for chiefdom insisted on a second wife. When the friars refused to compromise Christ’s teaching on marriage, a war party murdered the friars, mission by mission. A sixth friar, Francisco de Ávila, was tortured, but lived to tell the tale. The missions were eventually reestablished, and Catholicism thrived.

The bilingual service on Oct. 31 began with a procession down the runway-like aisle created from joining four exhibition spaces, the center’s largest configuration.

More than 200 clergy, including Franciscan Friars of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Cardinal Leo, 31 bishops and archbishops, over 100 deacons and seminarians, and the apostolic nuncio, were joined by nearly 200 members of the Knights of Columbus, the Knights of Malta, Knights (and Dames) of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Knights of Peter Claver. Seventy ciboria waited at the altar. 

Cardinal Leo read the apostolic letter and declared the Georgia Martyrs “blessed,” by having “placed the saving truth of the Gospel before their own safety.”

Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer and Archbishop Joan-Enric Vives i Sicilia, bishop emeritus of Urgell, who represented the Spanish Episcopal Conference, read English and Spanish translations of the apostolic letter, respectively.

The letter declared the martyrs’ feast day as Sept. 22, the octave day of Friar Pedro’s martyrdom. 

Thunderous applause erupted at the unveiling of the official portrait of the martyrs, showing them in humble repose and bathed in golden light. Before and after the beatification, the crowd toured the adjacent Georgia Martyrs Museum and art exhibition.

By worldly standards, it might seem like the martyrs failed, Cardinal Leo said during his homily. “But it is not so.”

They succeeded by embracing “the call to holiness, which further led them to embrace the call to consecrated life, the call to the sacred priesthood, the call to missionary work, the call to evangelize, the call to share and defend the faith and, ultimately, the call to give their very life.”

But “how compelled are we” to “follow Jesus’ call to follow him?” he asked.

A holy life requires defending the truth and “always put[ting] Christ first,” he stated, even while striving for unity in the world. “Polarization is not from God.”

The martyrs also bore witness to “the Christian doctrine of marriage and held to that divine truth to the shedding of their own blood,” he said, stressing the sacred nature of the family “founded upon the covenantal, sacramental, indissoluble union of one man and one woman.”

In his first public audience after recent surgery, Pope Leo XIV said that protecting marriage and family “is more urgent than ever before.”

The beatification itself was “perfect timing,” said Christine Camp, who came from Atlanta with more than a dozen other Catholics who had just attended a three-day retreat to pray for restoration of their marriages.

Moms and dads with children had traveled from near and far. “It’s our pilgrimage,” said Theodora Ferrant, who came from Pensacola with her husband and two children.

“I truly believe through the intercession of Blessed Pedro de Corpa and four companions there will be greater respect for the dignity and character of holy matrimony,” Savannah Bishop Stephen Parkes said.

“May the witness of these holy men inspire fidelity between spouses called into the covenantal bond of holy matrimony and help create a renewed commitment to the growth of faith-filled families in the state of Georgia and beyond.”

The celebration will continue Nov. 1 with a Mass of thanksgiving at the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/america-s-first-martyrs-for-marriage-the-georgia-martyrs-declared-blessed