Five Friars Killed In 1597 Set For Beatification In Savannah

The Diocese of Savannah will elevate five Spanish missionaries killed in 1597 to the status of blessed during a Saturday ceremony expected to draw 10,000 people. The event will take place at the city's convention center rather than a church because of the number of attendees. Bishops from Spain, Rome and Africa are among the expected visitors.

The Vatican concluded last year that the five Franciscan friars were martyred defending Christian values, clearing the way for beatification. Pope Francis signed a January 2025 decree recognizing them as martyrs shortly before his death. This marks the sixth time a beatification ceremony has been held in the United States.

The friars arrived in the late 16th century to minister to the Guale, an Indigenous chiefdom living among coastal villages in what was then part of Spanish Florida. They lived peacefully alongside the Guale for about two years. An argument over marriage customs then turned violent on Sept. 14, 1597, when Friar Pedro de Corpa admonished Juanillo, a baptized Guale man who planned to take a second wife as allowed by Guale tradition.

Juanillo later led a group of warriors to de Corpa's hut as the friar prepared for morning Mass and killed him with stone clubs. Over the following days, Guale warriors attacked other nearby missions and killed four more friars: Blas Rodriguez, Miguel de Anon, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Verascola. The Guale chiefdom was later decimated by raids that captured its people as slaves for English settlers.

By the mid-1700s, remaining Guale had fled to Cuba or were absorbed by other tribes, and they have modern descendants among the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. RaeLynn Butler, secretary of culture and humanities for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said the events of 1597 took place during a complex and often violent period of Spanish colonization, when Indigenous peoples struggled to preserve their sovereignty and cultural traditions. "While the killing of the friars was tragic, the history of the Guale people extends far beyond those events," she said.

Some historians have argued the friars may not have been the primary targets but were killed during a power struggle between Guale political rivals. The Rev. Pablo Migone, who spent the past decade as the diocese's chief promoter of the friars' beatification, said a strong historical case had to be made to Rome. U.S. bishops first proposed the missionaries as candidates in the 1950s, and the Diocese of Savannah joined the effort in 1984. A Franciscan historian carried a report of nearly 500 pages to Rome in 2007, and the case then awaited Vatican approval for nearly 20 more years.

Sainthood would require evidence of a miracle resulting from prayers to the friars. Bishop Stephen Parkes said the diocese would not solicit a miracle, adding that the church puts that into God's hands. The beatification ceremony is scheduled for Saturday.

The ceremony comes a month after a St. Louis football stadium hosted 50,000 people for the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who died in 1979. Unlike Sheen, the Spanish missionaries, known locally as the Georgia martyrs, were largely forgotten except among members of the Franciscan Order and scholars of America's past before the British colonies.