Confirmed in the Concistory the canonization on May 13 of the two "pastorinhos". On October 15th, three Mexican teenagers and 30 Brazilian martyrs will be proclaimed Saints. Cardinal Amato: "A sign for children and adolescents who are exploited"
At 11 and 9 years Francesco and Jacinta Marto, the two illiterate "Pastorinhos" of Fatima to whom in 1917 appeared the "Lady", the Virgin Mary in the Cova da Iria, probably would never have imagined that one day the Church would have proclaimed them Saints. Pope Francis announced their canonization for next May 13, 2017, in the centenary of the apparitions, in what will be the climax of his journey to the Portuguese town during the great mass before the sanctuary.
The announcement was given this morning by the Pontiff during an Ordinary Public Concistory, with the officialization of the canonization dates of other Blessed. In addition to Francesco and Jacinta, three Mexican children, Cristobal, Antonio and Giovanni, who, during the first evangelization of America, unreservedly adhered to the Christian faith and were martyred for this reason. The first died in 1527, massacred by his father, the other two in 1529 were beaten to death by their fellow citizens of Tlaxcala. For centuries, historians of the Mexican Church celebrate them as the Proto-martyrs not only of Mexico, but of all Latin America, the "seeds" that have flourished Christianity in the New World.
"These Blessed are not only admired by the people of God for the splendor of their virtues, but also as intercessors of miracles and graces" the Pope said in Latin. Recalling their luminous testimony, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, wanted to open the Concistory with a thought on all young people who today have been stripped of their childhood and adolescence, of their dignity or of their own life. "Not without sorrow we remember that five of the Blessed are children and teenagers" he said. This is very significant "in the history of our times, in which the little ones are not infrequently subject to exploitation" the cardinal emphasized. And he said that these little future Saints are "witnesses of truth and freedom, messengers of peace of a reconciled humanity within love."
Cristobal, Antonio and Giovanni's canonization ceremony will be held on October 15 in St. Peter's Square, together with the priests Andrea de Soveral and Ambrogio Francesco Ferro, the lay man Matteo Moreira and 27 Companions, all martyred in Brazil during the brutal Calvinist repression perpetrated by the Dutch against the Catholic faith in 1645. On that day, will be proclaimed Saints - as announced in today’s Concistory - the Spanish religious man Faustino Míguez, who founded the Calasanzian Institute of the Daughters of the Divine Pastor, and Angelo from Acri, alias Luca Antonio Falcone, professor of the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin, who lived between the seventeenth and eighteenth century in the Kingdom of Naples, who sided with the weak, punishing the corruption and social injustices of his time.
Many details are known of the story of the two "shepherds" of Fatima and of the long process which begun in 1952 and concluded in 1979 thanks to the writings of their cousin Lucia dos Santos, consecrated nun and died in 2005 aged 98, who attended the beatification of two siblings presided over by John Paul II in the Shrine of Fatima on May 13, 2000 during the Great Jubilee.
Little is known, however, of the history of the three Mexican martyrs in odium fidei. All three lived in the early years of the '500 when Franciscan and Dominican missionaries landed in a Mexico dominated at that time by the Aztec worship with its numerous and cruel human sacrifices perpetrated by a caste of priests who worshiped idols and practiced Pagan customs. The evangelizers tried to counter these practises strenuously, sometimes using drastic methods such as the destruction of temples and idols in an effort to promote and defend the local population from these bloodthirsty rites. This, while being among the causes that favored the rapid development of Christianity among indigenous peoples, was also the reason which sparked the persecutions carried out by the gurus and the "faithful" to paganism against the evangelists.
The wave of blood and violence overwhelmed the three kids, educated at the Franciscan school of Tlaxcala, they were killed in different times and places. The first to die was Cristobal, also known as "Cristobalito," 13, a beloved son and heiress of the Acxotecatl cacique. Following the example of his three brothers, he approached the Christian faith and spontaneously asked to be baptized, taking the name of Christopher. He tried to convert his father, exhorting him to change habits, he would sometimes break the idols in the house and tried to witness the gospel to family and acquaintances. His father forgave him at first, then decided to kill him. The crime took place in the house: the man broke the boy's limbs with a cane, who, meanwhile, continued to pray until he was thrown into a burning fire. The uncorrupted body, was first buried in a room of the house, then a year later, the Franciscans took it to the convent of Tlaxcala and finally to the church of Santa Maria.
Also Antonio and Giocanni were born in Tlaxcala. The first was a nephew and heir of the local cacique, while John, of humbler condition, was his servant. Both attended the Franciscan School. In 1529, the Dominicans decided to set up a mission to Oaxaca and asked the school director for some boys to accompany them as interpreters. The teenagers proposed themselves immediately. In Tepeaca the boys helped the missionaries collect the idols, then only Antonio and John moved to Cuauhtinchán. Antonio would go into the houses while John stood at the door. One day, some angry indigenous armed with sticks struck John to his instant death. Antonio tried to help but the aggressors killed him too. The two bodies were thrown into a cliff near Tecalco. The friars recovered the bodies and buried them in a chapel in Tepeaca. John Paul II proclaimed them blessed on May 6, 1990 in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, together with Juan Diego, the "messenger" of Morenita.
Equally gloomy was the epilogue of Brazilian Jesuit Andre Soveral, martyred at age 73 in July 1645 in the Chapel of Our Lady of Candles in Cunhau (one of the two only parishes existing at that time in the Rio Grande do Norte). At the end of a Mass, a troop of Dutch soldiers adhering to the Reformation Movement of the Calvinists broke into the Church, and behind closed doors, tortured and killed the priest and innocent faithful, most of whom were peasants and workers. A few months later, on October 3, the same fate occurred to Father Ambrosio Francisco Ferro, victim with his parishioners of Dutch soldiers and 200 other indigenous people in the parish of Our Lady of the Presentation. Again, John Paul II lifted them to the honors of the altars on March 5, 2000.
Now Bergoglio has proclaimed Saints all these witnesses of faith. A sign of the closeness of the Church to those who, in this world wounded by wars and radicalism, pay with their own blood their fidelity to Christ and the Gospel.
