January 27, 2025: Update on the Cause of Beatification The Georgia Martyrs, Venerable Servants of God, to be Beatified https://www.thegeorgiamartyrs.org/en/

 The Georgia Martyrs

January 27, 2025: Update on the Cause of Beatification

The Georgia Martyrs, Venerable Servants of God, to be Beatified

 

In the late sixteenth century, six Spanish Franciscans came to what is now the Georgia coast to minister to the native people called the Guale.

 

Between September 14th and September 17th, 1597, all but one were murdered.

Pedro de Corpa and Companions: The Story of the Georgia Martyrs

Ask about old Spanish missions in America, and most people will think of the adobe churches from the late eighteenth century that span the coast of California. Yet these missions, however historic and celebrated, were by no means the first of their kind in what is now the United States.

A full two centuries before Bl. Junipero Serra preached to the Native Americans along the West Coast, his brother Franciscan friars from Spain were spreading the Gospel in what are now the southeastern states.

Before the founding of the first permanent English colony in America or the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock (1620), first Jesuits and then Franciscans established missions in what are now Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. They labored with remarkable courage and devotion to evangelize native peoples of the region, and tens of thousands were baptized, catechized, and provided the sacraments.

Their mission base was a Spanish settlement on the Florida peninsula, St. Augustine – the oldest still-inhabited city in America, founded in 1565. It was here in La Florida, as the Spanish called the colony, that the Christian faith first took root in the lands that today form the United States.

La Florida

The Spanish successfully established colonies and missions along the eastern coast of Florida and Georgia in the sixteenth century. Though this territory collectively called “La Florida” was not rich in gold and silver, it was a strategic location since Spanish galleons full of riches sailed back to Europe along the coast. Fearful of British attacks and unfriendly natives along the coast, the Spanish had an interest in colonizing the region. 

After the successful founding of Saint Augustine in present-day Florida in 1565, the Spanish founded a string of missions along the coast, both on the mainland and barrier islands.

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REPORTATIO SUPER MARTYRIO SERVORUM DEi PETRI DE CORPA ET SOCIORUM EJUS ANNO DOMINI 1597 IN FLORIDA OCCISORUM (Editio Tertia "Positionis", 7 Maii 2002)

The First Georgia Missions: Our Southern Catholic Heritage, Dr. Paul Thigpen and Katherine Ragan. Illustrations by Pamela Gardner, based on the retablo by Dan Nichols. This retablo is part of the parish patrimony of Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church in Jasper, Georgia

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