SAVANNAH, Ga. (OSV News) — On the eve of All Saints’ Day, the day the Church celebrates its saints and blesseds, five 16th-century Franciscan martyrs were given the title “blessed” at the Savannah Convention Center in Georgia.

Friars Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añon, Antonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Veráscola, known together as the Georgia Martyrs, were missionaries who came from Spain to serve the Guale people in coastal Georgia. They were all killed within days of each other in 1597 by the order of the soon-to-be chief Juanillo after Fr. Pedro de Corpa stood by the Church’s teaching on marriage when Juanillo wanted to take a second wife.

Pilgrims poured in from all over Georgia, the United States, and even around the world to honor these Franciscan missionaries. Some of the thousands who gathered for the Beatification Mass Oct. 31 told OSV News why they chose to spend their Halloween celebrating martyrs from Georgia’s distant past.

Two of the pilgrims at the beatification had an extra special connection to Francisco de Veráscola: They are descendants of one of his brothers. María Isabel Inoriza de Villota, a 12th-generation descendant of the brother of the new blessed, came with her son Imanol Goitia Inoriza, 16, all the way from Spain to attend the beatification of this relative who gave his life for the faith over four centuries ago.

Honoring a friar from Gordexola

Inoriza de Villota told OSV News ahead of the beatification that her uncle had found the connection in the family tree and their family had a lot of devotion to Francisco de Veráscola. They live in his hometown of Gordexola, Spain, where he is honored, especially for his love of sports, which he was known to play with the Guale youth. There is even a sports club there that shares his name.

Inoriza de Villota and her son were able to have a quiet moment at Fort King George in Darien, Ga., where Francisco is believed to have been killed. She said that moment was “indescribable” and “a feeling that can’t be put into words.”

The thing that inspired her about Francisco, she said, was “the courage he showed, coming from the village of Gordexola, where he lived, which was in the mountains” and how “he set out to board a ship and travel halfway around the world back then to evangelize and spread the faith.”

Families travel for a rare U.S. beatification

Her son also admired that bravery, and after having made a modern version of the journey himself for the beatification, he noted that there were “no planes” when Francisco made such a long trip all those centuries ago.

Inoriza de Villota was very proud to be at the beatification and grateful for those who made it possible. “It’s like a dream,” she said.

Traveling a shorter distance, Angelo and Valerie Cannizaro made the trip to the beatification from Macon, Ga., because they wanted to experience it as a family and give their seven kids, ranging in age from 2 months to 10 years, the memory of going to a beatification.

“Beatifications don’t happen on U.S. soil too often,” Valerie noted, adding, “when we learned that these friars died protecting the sanctity of marriage, since that is our vocation, we felt even more inspired to come and to celebrate them.” Angelo said it felt important to honor the Georgia martyrs “as a married couple and as a big family” because of the friars’ brave witness to the sanctity of marriage.

Missionary zeal and the Franciscan spirit of poverty

Sister of Life Sister Gemma Grace, originally from the Diocese of Savannah, traveled to the event from the sisters’ motherhouse in New York.

“It’s such a huge moment in our Church,” she said. “And as Sisters of Life, we believe in the dignity of life, the dignity of marriage. So we’re so proud of these martyrs for standing up for that.” She added that she loved the martyrs’ “missionary zeal and their love for Jesus and their desire to share that with the world, with those who hadn’t heard the name of Jesus before.”

Mary Elizabeth Crissy, 25, came to the event from Atlanta and first heard about the martyrs when a nearby parish hung up a photo of them. “It just really struck my heart that we have so much depth and richness to the faith, literally in our backyards,” she said.

Her fiance is from Savannah and they’ve been excited to celebrate the beatification together. As she is preparing for the sacrament of marriage, she was touched by “the beauty that they were willing to stand up for the sanctity of marriage and also their courage to do that.”

She was also impressed by the “true poverty of the Franciscan spirituality” in that the martyrs ministered to a territory that Jesuit missionaries had withdrawn from because of its difficulties. “To see the way that they embraced this place that maybe others rejected was so beautiful,” she said, “and a testament of their spirituality to really lean into that poverty of the mission.”

Examples for families and young adults today

Sin and Lin Bui made the trip with their parish, Holy Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church in Norcross, Ga., where they are part of a Marriage and Family Enrichment program. Lin said the martyrs “sacrificed their life for marriage” and that’s why she and her husband felt they had to come to the beatification.

Hai Ha, another member of their parish, said she liked that the martyrs were “trying to protect the Christian family.” She believes it’s an important example for our times because “what they stood for back then is something that needs to be protected now too.”

Pilgrims Ava Doyle and Francesca Bosch, both 20, took advantage of their fall break at the University of Georgia to come to Savannah from Athens, Ga., for the beatification.

Doyle said that “the fact that the martyrs are from Georgia is so special” and she was struck by the Georgia Martyrs’ “accompaniment” of the Guale people in their evangelization efforts.

Bosch said the martyrs show “what it means to live on mission to the farthest extreme” and added that their love for the Lord in “their willingness to die for the fullness of the truth is just so beautiful.”

Beatified martyrs from a familiar place

Lizzie Peacock, 24, and Elise Devine, 22, traveled from South Carolina for the event while doing music missions with the Regnum Christi Music Collective. Peacock said of the martyrs that she was “very inspired by their method of evangelization” of “living amongst the people and singing with them and playing games with them.”

Devine felt like the Lord put the beatification in her path and said it was wonderful to have beatified martyrs from Georgia because it’s “a place that we’re familiar with and used to” and “it’s so beautiful” to “have such holy people who walked here.”

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Lauretta Brown is culture editor for OSV News. Follow her on X.