The Martyrs of Georgia

Martyrs for the Sanctity of Marriage

The Georgia Martyrs are five Spanish Franciscans, four priests and one lay brother, who served the Guale missions along the coast of present-day Georgia, then part of Spanish La Florida: Fray Pedro de Corpa, Fray Blas Rodríguez, Fray Miguel de Añón, Fray Antonio de Badajoz, and Fray Francisco de Veráscola.

In September 1597, Fray Pedro de Corpa, missionary at Tolomato near modern Eulonia, refused to allow Juanillo, a baptized Guale Christian and heir to the office of paramount chief, to take a second wife according to Guale custom. Juanillo killed de Corpa on September 14, 1597, then raised a war party that swept the coastal missions over the following two weeks: Blas Rodríguez was killed at Tupiqui on September 16, Miguel de Añón and Antonio de Badajoz at Santa Catalina de Guale on St. Catherines Island on September 17, and Francisco de Veráscola at Asao on St. Simons Island in late September. Because they died for upholding Christian teaching on marriage, they are presented as martyrs for the sanctity of marriage.

The Diocese of Savannah opened their cause on February 22, 1984, under Bishop Raymond W. Lessard, and the documentation went to Rome in 2007. On January 27, 2025, Pope Francis authorized the decree recognizing their deaths as martyrdom in hatred of the faith, giving them the title Venerable and clearing the path to beatification without a required miracle.

Their beatification is scheduled for October 31, 2026, in Savannah: the first beatification ever held in Georgia and in the American South. Cardinal Frank Leo, Archbishop of Toronto, will preside as Papal Legate representing Pope Leo XIV.

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