Bl. John of Cetina & Bl. Peter de Dueñas

The dramatic saga of John of Cetina and Peter de Dueñas can be summarized in a single line: “Franciscans of Spain,” writes hagiographer Basil Watkins, “they were sent to the Muslim kingdom of Granada in order to try and evangelize the inhabitants and were predictably killed.”

As you’d expect, there’s more to this story.

Born in 1340, John had a privileged childhood, but he gravitated to obscurity and penitence. In time he made his way to the Franciscans of Aragon, where he made his profession and was ordained. Although a popular preacher, John longed for solitude, and he retired to a cave in Valencia to take up an eremitical life.

Word of heroic Franciscan martyrdoms in the Holy Land reached Father John, and he committed himself to missionary work among the Moors, despite his solitary inclinations and the risks. John received permission to visit the Muslims of southern Spain in 1396, and he prepared for his journey.

At the time, Franciscan missionaries always traveled in pairs, and Father John chose Brother Peter to be his companion. Peter was around 19 years old and just starting out in his religious vocation. Nonetheless, he was eager to join Father John, and he rebuffed objections to his participation in such a dangerous undertaking.

It wasn’t long after the two arrived in Granada before they were arrested and hauled before the Sultan. Offered the choice between conversion to Islam and death, the two readily accepted the latter. The Sultan promptly complied, beheading them both by his own hand.

Pope Clement XII beatified the pair in 1731. The promulgation of their exploits likely spurred the missionary aspirations of another Spanish Franciscan, young Junípero Serra, who would eventually become the Apostle of California.

The memorial of John of Cetina and Peter de Dueñas is observed on May 19, the day of their martyrdom in 1397.
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A shorter version of this reflection originally appeared in Franciscan Magazine, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

St. Nicholas Pieck and Companions (d. 1572)

Reformation Europe was a boiling sea of social upheaval, and good Christians of every stripe found the shifting political scene a daunting arena in which to live out their faith. Zeal for creed was often mixed up with lust for power, and excesses of the most brutal kind were routinely rationalized on both sacred and secular grounds.

In sixteenth-century Holland, where the entanglement of faith and statecraft was particularly complex, a group of Franciscans under the leadership of St. Nicholas Pieck bravely met the challenge of sectarianism gone mad and paid the ultimate price for their fidelity to the Faith.

 Dutch Ships Ramming Spanish Galleys, by Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (c. 1562–1640)

The affable and selfless Father Pieck was the guardian of a small friary in the coastal fishing village of Gorkum. He was from a prominent Dutch family and had received the finest education available, including studies at the famed Louvain University. At this time, the Netherlands was a possession of the Spanish King Philip II, and the Protestant revolt against all established authority was sweeping the continent. Fr. Pieck was a passionate Catholic in every respect, and when he got wind of the approaching storm of revolution, he spared no effort in exhorting both his confreres and the townspeople to adhere closely to their Catholic faith, no matter what the cost. 

In 1572, a Dutch rebellion materialized with a distinctly Calvinist flavor – in part to further distance the homeland from Catholic Spain. With the support of Holland’s Prince William of Orange, mercenary seamen called the Watergeuzen, or “Sea Beggars,” went about ravaging the coast and establishing beachheads for the new rebellion. The Protestant pirates arrived in Gorkum on June 26, 1572, and quickly took over the town. The brigands decided to underscore the newly imposed Calvinist ascendancy by rounding up the local Catholic clergy and subjecting them to intimidation and abuse.

Nineteen priests and religious comprised the band of captives – Fr. Pieck, eight other Franciscan priests, and two Franciscan brothers were joined by an Augustinian, a Dominican, two Norbertines, and four secular priests. The Sea Beggars roughly treated their captives and threw them in a filthy dungeon. The marauders singled out Fr. Nicholas for the cruelest treatment, choking him with his own cincture and then, after he survived the attack, applying a burning torch to the priest’s face, ears, and tongue. Eventually, the rebel Admiral Lumaye ordered the group moved to Brielle, a nearby Calvinist stronghold, where he compelled the priests and brothers to parade through the town reciting litanies for the amusement of the populace.

Once sated with the infliction of these indignities, the Sea Beggars invited local Calvinist ministers to come and debate the Catholic clergy on the hot issues of the day – namely, the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and the unique authority vested in the Pope as successor of St. Peter. The Calvinist rebels no doubt expected the ministers to easily defeat the priests on every count, but to a man – including the less educated lay brothers – each of the prisoners ably defended the Church’s ancient teaching with deft argument and sound theological reasoning.

By this time, word of the kidnapping had spread abroad. The influential family of Fr. Pieck attempted to secure the guardian’s release, but the holy priest refused to leave his confinement unless all were released with him. At the same time, the local magistrates, the people of Gorkum, and even the Calvinist Prince William himself, weighed in on the side of the hostages.

Martyrs de Gorkum, by Cesare Fracassini (1838-1868)

Nevertheless, Admiral Lumaye stubbornly insisted the prisoners make some public gesture denying the Catholic Faith in exchange for their freedom. All 19 were swift to reject the offer, and were resolute in confirming their belief in the Real Presence and the authority of the Pope. Summing up his own position and that of the entire group, Fr. Pieck declaimed boldly, “I would rather endure death for the honor of God than swerve even a hair’s breadth from the Catholic Faith.”

The clerics’ refusal to yield inflamed Lumaye and his followers, and under cover of night on July 9, 1572, the Calvinist rebels led their hostages to an abandoned monastery outside of Brielle. There, in a turf shed, and assisted by an apostate priest, the Sea Beggars strung up the 19 confessors one by one and left them to hang until dead. The murderers disposed of the bodies in a makeshift common grave, and it was not until 1616 that the remains were recovered and properly enshrined in a Belgian Franciscan church.

Pope Pius XI canonized the Martyrs of Gorkum in 1867, and their glorious sacrifice is memorialized every year on July 9. 

A version of this story appeared in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

The Martyrs of Shanxi

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited a shrine in Rome dedicated to the martyrs of the twentieth century. “So many fell while they were carrying out the evangelizing mission of the Church,” he commented. “Their blood mingled with that of the indigenous Christians to which they had transmitted the faith.” The Holy Father’s words are an apt description of the Franciscan martyrs of Shanxi—a small band of religious whose own sacrifice ushered in an epoch of sacrifice. 

The Catholic Church in China traces its beginnings to missionary efforts in the thirteenth century. The Christian practice of those early pioneers naturally had a strong European flavor that was hard to reconcile with ancient Oriental customs. With each new encounter between the West and the Far East, however, missioners grew ever more skilled at inculturating the Faith and accommodating it as much as possible to the Chinese way of life.

This approach was enthusiastically adopted by the seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary who traveled to the Chinese province of Shanxi in 1899. Hailing from four different European countries, the sisters settled in Taiyuan, the provincial capital, and threw themselves into their work—serving the poor through hospitals, orphanages, vocational training, and numerous other apostolates.

The needs were great in Shanxi; the demands on the sisters unrelenting. Still, the seven knew great joy as they manifested their love for Christ through their service, and the people of their adopted homeland reciprocated with affection. Sr. Mary Amandina was particularly singled out for her cheerfulness despite challenging conditions and often grueling work. She was known to the Chinese as “The European sister who is always laughing.”

St. M. Amandina (1872-1900)

Some in Shanxi disapproved of the sisters’ work, especially the provincial governer, Yu Xian. This was the period of the Boxer Rebellion—a violent reaction to Western influence in China—and Yu Xian took advantage of the tumult to press an assault on the fledgling Christian community and the missionaries who cultivated it. This attack was not wholly unexpected, as Sr. Amandina had previously expressed in a letter home. “The news is not good, danger is approaching, but we are peaceful,” she wrote. “I confide myself to God’s care and I pray Him to console and fortify the martyrs and those who have to suffer for His name.”

On July 5, 1900, Yu Xian imprisoned the seven sisters along with almost two dozen friars, seminarians, and lay faithful. Four days later, after a mock trial, the execution order was given, and the sisters were forced to witness the demise of their brethren. This cruel act of intimidation had little effect, and throughout the ordeal the sisters could be heard praying and chanting the Te Deum until they themselves were slaughtered. 

Sr. Amandina and her sisters, along with 113 other martyrs of China, were canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. The next day in Rome, a group of 36 Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary pledged themselves to continue in the footsteps of the Shanxi martyrs and bring the Gospel to foreign lands—including two to be sent to China.

The feast of the Shanxi martyrs is July 9. 

A version of this story appeared in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.