Category Archives: South America

Peter Claver — September 8

South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
By Raul Berzosa for the Chapel of Our Lady of Bethlehem at the Belen Jesuit Prep School, Miami, FA

Bible connection

Christ Jesus, who, though he existed in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross. — Philippians 2:5-8

All about Peter Claver (1580-1654)

Peter Claver came from Spain to the docks in Cartagena (now in Colombia) shortly after his training for the priesthood was completed. He was ordained there in 1615. He worked with Alfonso de Sandoval, a priest who dedicated more than forty years of his life to ministering to enslaved people. Sandoval wrote the earliest record of Black Africans in the Spanish Colonies. Peter not only took up his mentor’s mantle, he called himself “Petrus Claver, Aethiopum servus,” or “Peter Claver, slave of the Africans.”

Cartagena was a wealthy center for the slave trade. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit.

As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like animals and shut up in nearby pens to be inspected, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons, and tobacco (see this excerpt of a letter he wrote).

The life Peter Claver chose to lead defied convention. When others shrank back in repulsion, he extended his hands in love. When others avoided situations for fear of filth and feces, he bravely entered into the darkness of sickness and death with the light of Christ. What others thought of as wasted time resulted in the baptism of over 300,000  people during his ministry.

Peter Claver ventured into the places no one wanted to go, and he did the work that no one thought anyone should do. And no one could stop him. One of the great feats he completed was learning the languages of the enslaved people in order to bring them the Gospel. Claver worked with seven interpreters, one of them spoke four African dialects. With their help, he  taught the Gospel with words that could be understood. He would also use pictures in his teaching, primarily images of the crucified Christ. He sought ways for discarded people to know their dignity and worth, and they learned how deeply they were loved despite their circumstances. The image of the Suffering Servant giving his life said it all.

He said, “We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips.”

Claver’s work extended beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force in Cartagena; some said he was the “apostle” of the city. He preached in the city square, organizing the mass with sailors and traders he recruited from the ships along with the country folk coming for the markets. He avoided the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead.

In 1650, after dedicating nearly forty years of his life to ministering to enslaved and devalued people, Claver became ill during a virulent epidemic and nearly lost his life. After he recovered, he was still bedridden and in pain for the remaining four years of his life. He was largely forgotten and neglected as the unrelenting plague swept through.

Just a few days after another priest came to take up the mantle of ministering to the suffering Africans, Peter Claver died. It was as if he knew, while bedridden, his work was not being done until a successor arrived. It is even reported that he gathered strength to rise from his bed to greet his replacement. Upon his passing, those who had ridiculed him and mocked his ministry as “a waste” gave him a lavish state funeral.

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This nice biography is also a spirited defense of human rights as a Catholic inspiration, not the province of a few white men, many who owned slaves (that would be you, Thomas Jefferson):

The history of St. Peter Claver Church Philadelphia (closed 2023) is interesting and a little sad. [Archdiocese site]

The Knights of Peter Claver  was organized in 1909 in Mobile, Alabama. It is the largest and oldest Black Catholic lay-led organization still in existence. It was modeled after other Catholic fraternal orders such as the Knights of Columbus, who at the time did not allow Black members in all of their councils. Here is a video of their centennial mass in 2009:

The Roman Catholic Church commemorates St. Peter Claver on September 9 instead of on his death day. It could be because Mary’s birthday has been on September 8 since the 6th Century when St. Anne’s Church was built on a site in Jerusalem where she was purportedly born.

What do we do with this?

Worldwide, there are still men and women who are being treated as objects. There are also those who have tragically forgotten or have never understood their dignity and their worth. There are many who are sick without aid or relief. There are many who are dying alone. We are all longing for the same message Peter Claver brought to the slaves from Africa: “You are loved, you are unrepeatable, and you have dignity and purpose.”

This snippet from the Forum of Christian Leadership also shows that human rights is a concept that begins with Christian thinkers. If you can’t outthink the present influencers of our day, you can support people who can. Otherwise, Peter Thiel and the like will buy all the politicians and the airwaves to sell a vision for a society in which only his kind can win [video].

Louis Francescon — September 7

North America, South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Bible connection

Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.–– Habakkuk 2:4

All about Luigi (Louis) Franscescon (1866-1964)

Luigi Francescon was born in an Italian farming village named Cavasso Nuovo, not far from what is now the Slovenian border. His family faced hard times. Their poverty was compounded by the need to pay tribute to the village overlord. Though only educated to the sixth grade, Francescon overcame his poverty by perfecting his craft as a mosaicist. He then joined the military and earned enough to emigrate to the United States.

He arrived in Chicago on March 3, 1890. There he heard the preaching of Michele Nardi the Italian immigrant evangelist and left Catholicism for interdenominational Protestant faith. Together with Waldensians Teofilo Gay and Filippo Grill, also connected with Nardi, Francescon helped found the First Italian Presbyterian Church of Chicago. He soon left the Presbyterians, however, because infant baptism did not make sense to him. The evangelist, Giuseppe Beretta, led him to embrace adult baptism by immersion and rebaptized him. A new church formed under Beretta’s leadership, meeting in homes, including Francescon’s.

On August 25, 1907, during a visit to William H. Durham’s North Avenue Mission, only blocks away from his home, Francescon was baptized in the Spirit. Durham’s mission had become the center for a revival influenced by the outpouring at Azusa Street in Los Angles. Durham had been a skeptic until he visited Azusa Street and spoke in tongues.

With fellow Pentecostal pioneer Pietro Ottolini, Francescon stood for several years at the helm of an awakening at the Italian Grand Avenue Mission, which later took the name the Assemblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly). Francescon helped steer the church through several years of doctrinal turbulence (over issues such as the Sabbath), while continuing to stand firmly against further attempts to “organize” the work. However, when the future of the Italian American Pentecostal movement depended on it, he relented to the demand to structure the church along doctrinal and missional lines. He was thus among the chief founders and original overseers of the Christian Church of North America, the flagship denomination of the movement — later the CCUS or Christian Congregation in the United States. There is a congregation in Philadelphia at 1900 Ripley in Rhawnhurst.

Francescon also founded congregations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, often leaving his wife and six children in the care of the church.

Alongside his pioneering work on the North American front, Francescon is also counted among the most prominent of the founders of Pentecostal work in South America.  Accompanied by Giacomo Lombardi and Lucia Menna from the Chicago Mission, in late 1909 Francescon embarked on a missionary trip to family and friends in Argentina. His own report, and the historical memory of the churches he founded, attest to his evangelism being accompanied by healings and various miracles. In the city of San Cayetano, Francescon was arrested and stood trial. Upon his release, he was forbidden to ever preach there again.

Present mother church of Congregação Cristã no Brasil in Bras, Sao Paulo. 50,000+ temples in 78 countries with over 3 million members.

Francescon’s life-defining work still lay ahead. Among the Italian diaspora in Brazil he founded the Congregação Cristã no Brasil (Portuguese for Christian Congregation in Brazil). This church became the mother of a global denomination. In March of 1910 he arrived in São Paulo. One of his first contacts there was Vincenzo Pievani, an atheist. Pievani brought him to his home in San Antonio da Platina where Francescon conducted a fruitful outreach among the Roman Catholic population. His success attracted the attention of a local priest. The priest reportedly plotted to have Francescon killed, sparking Francescon’s escape and return to São Paulo. There he witnessed to a number of Presbyterians, Methodists, and Roman Catholics, who left their parishes and joined the fledgling Pentecostal movement. He delivered a homily in Italian at a Presbyterian church in the Italian barrio known as the Brás, urging the congregation to seek the baptism in the Spirit. The eldership fervidly disapproved of both the manner and language Francescon used to deliver the sermon. Ordered to leave the congregation, Francescon carried a large number away with him and founded an independent congregation. The church became the linchpin for the Congregação Cristã, which remains to this day one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in Brazil.

In 1911, William Durham reported that Francescon had left for Italy to evangelize his home region. “It was never our privilege to meet a more blessed and powerful man of God”, he wrote. “He is certainly doing, as it were, the work of an Apostle”.

Over his lifetime, Francescon made nine trips from his home church in Chicago to Brazil. Although he made no monetary demands, the Congregação Cristã funded his last two trips. Even until his death in 1964, at 96, and completely blind, Francescon continued to send letters of encouragement to the Pentecostal work he founded in Brazil.

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Nice Wikipedia page.

Explorations in Italian Protestantism has been much referenced above. Here is Francescon’s page.

At the CCUS website, they have included their founder’s testimony.

Are you familiar with Family Search? Here is Luigi’s page.

This is in Portuguese, but the pictures give some nice background:

What do we do with this?

The Pentecostal movement has made a huge impact on Brazil and all of South America.  It felt wild to the Presbyterians Francescon left behind. Ironically, the denomination he founded reportedly lost more than 200,000 adherents leading into the 21st century due to their inability to adapt to the times. Their prophecy was overcome by the order Francescon resisted. It makes us think how we can be stuck in our ways and irrelevant, even though what got our churches started was also passion and selfless work.

In the mid-20th century, 90% of Brazilians identified as Catholics.  Recent estimates suggest the percentage is closer to 50%. The Wikipedia page outlines the expansion.  If you are an American, you might not be aware of  anything on that page. But you might run into one of the Brazilian missionaries called to serve in your godless backyard.  The Family Church Brazil has been in Frankford for over 5 years.  What do you think about living in a mission field?

Antonio de Montesinos — June 27

North America, South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Antonio de Montesinos shouts against slavery. Sculpture by Antonio Castellanos (1982), Santo Domingo harbor, Dominican Republic

Bible connection

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,

And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured:

But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. — Isaiah 62:6-9 (KJV)

All about Antonio de Montesinos (1475-1540)

The Spaniards who conquered the Caribbean and operated plantations with Native American labor were wanton in their destruction of human life, and perpetrated terrible cruelties to get gold or to exact revenge for the slightest indignities. Most priests were silent to these abuses but a few Dominican friars were outraged.

Antonio de Montesinos was among the outraged. Very little is known about Montesinos’ early life. He joined the Dominican order at the convent of St. Stephen in Salamanca, Spain. While he was there, he may have received an education. He was a member of the first group of Dominican missionaries to go to Hispaniola (now divided into the Dominican Republic and Haiti) in September 1510, under the leadership of of his prior, Pedro de Córdoba.

With the backing of Córdoba and his Dominican community in Santo Domingo, Montesinos was the first European to publicly denounce the enslavement and harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples of the island. He initiated an ongoing struggle to resist and reform the colonizers’ treatment of the people in the “New World.” Montesinos’ outspoken criticism influenced Bartolomé de las Casas to head up a movement for the humane treatment of the native people.

Montesinos is famous for his sermon on December 21, 1511, in which he warned his listeners of their spiritual peril. His listeners demanded a retraction. Instead, the Prior Cordoba responded with the threat of excommunication for all plantation operators who did not free their Indians. Here is part of Montesinos’ sermon:

I have climbed to this pulpit to let you know of your sins, for I am the voice of Christ crying in the desert of this island, and therefore, you must not listen to me indifferently, but with all your heart and all your senses…. This voice tells you that you are in mortal sin; that you not only are in it, but live in it and die in it, and this because of the cruelty and tyranny that you bring to bear on these innocent people.

Pray tell, by what right do you wage your odious wars on people who dwelt in quiet and peace on their own lands? [By what right have you] destroyed countless numbers of them with unparalleled murders and destruction? Why do you oppress and exploit them, without even giving them enough to eat, or caring for them when they become ill as a result of your exploitation? They die, or rather, you kill them, so that you may extract and obtain more and more gold every day….

Are they not human? Have they no souls? Are you not required to love them as you love yourselves? How can you remain in such profound moral lethargy? I assure you, in your present state you can no more be saved than Moors or Turks who do not have and even reject the faith of Jesus Christ!” [Justo González, “Lights in the Darkness.”]

As a result of the friars’ protests at Santo Domingo, King Ferdinand II of Spain initially ordered that Montesinos be shipped back to the homeland along with other Dominicans who supported him. Ferdinand, at first, referred to the preaching of Montesinos as “a novel and groundless attitude” and a “dangerous opinion [that] would do much harm to all the affairs of that land.” After returning to Spain, Montesinos and his supporters were able to persuade the king of their righteous cause and principles.

As a result, the king convened a commission that promulgated the Laws of Burgos, the first code of ordinances to protect the indigenous people. The laws regulated the treatment and conversion of the indigenous people, and also limited the demands of the Spanish colonizers upon them.

Montesinos returned to the Caribbean. In July 1526, under the leadership of Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Montesinos, two other Dominicans, and 600 colonists established San Miguel de Gualdape, the first European settlement in what would later become the United States. It was founded near Sapelo Sound on the coast of Georgia, but the colony only lasted about four months before it succumbed to disease, starvation, and a hostile Indian population. After the death of Ayllón, the settlement was abandoned. Montesinos was among the 150 survivors who returned to San Domingo. It is presumed Montesinos and the other Dominicans were the first priests to celebrate Mass in the present-day United States.

When Montesinos returned to Hispaniola, he continued to play a prominent role in the region. In 1528, he accompanied Fray Tomás de Berlanga to Spain to see King Charles V on matters of “great importance.” While in Spain, he was appointed protector of the Indians in the Province of Venezuela. Charles V then granted that province to Ambrosio Alfinger and Bartolome Sayller, representatives of the Welser banking family, German creditors of the emperor. Montesinos accompanied the German expedition to Venezuela in 1529.

In 1537 Pope Paul III issued the Papal bull Sublimus Deus which finally declared West Indians to be fully human. It forbade the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and all other indigenous people who could be discovered later or were previously known. It states the Indians are fully rational human beings who have rights to freedom and property, even if they are heathen.

On June 27, 1540 Antonio de Montesinos was murdered in Venezuela by an officer of the Welser expedition due to his strong opposition to the exploitation of the Indians.

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An excerpt from Bartolomé de Las Casas’ A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542):

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. A nice bio with further details.

What do we do with this?

As much as we might despair over the impact colonizers had on the world, we have to admire the courage and ingenuity they demonstrate! Many of the missionaries were true believers hitchhiking on the ships bringing devastation to new lands. Many were tools of the system, of course, but not Montesinos. His statue in Santo Domingo is a monument to the gospel that eventually got him killed. Maybe someone will remember your faith, too.

If you hit some of the links scattered through this history, you will get a quick lesson about and era and place about which you know very little. The study might give you some insight about places you’ve heard about (like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela) which have provided many new citizens of the U.S. in the last 20 years (like a million Dominicans and 500K Venezuelans). If you met some of them, they might end up thinking you cared enough to find out about them. (If we have readers from there, you can verify if that is true).

Martin de Porres — November 3

South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Icon by Robert Lentz

Bible Connection

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.  — 2 Corinthians 8:9

All about Martin de Porres (1579-1639)

Martin de Porres could have grown into a bitter man. In his day people of “mixed blood” were called “half-breed” or “war souvenir” by those of “pure” blood. He did not grow bitter. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.

He was the son of a freed woman from Panama (probably black but also possibly indigenous) and a Spanish aristocrat from Lima, Peru. His parents never married each other. Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That disturbed his father, who finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima’s society.

When he was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. Martin learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood, a standard medical treatment then; to care for wounds; and to prepare and administer medicines.

After a few years in this medical role, Martin applied to the Dominicans to be a “lay helper.” He did not feel worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility, led the community to ask him to make full religious profession. Many of his nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices. His days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor.

People noted how he cared for all people equally, regardless of their color, race, or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa, and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality, as well as generosity. He became the financial manager for both his priory and the city of Lima, whether it was a matter of “blankets, shirts, candles, candy, miracles or prayers!” When his priory was in debt, he said, “I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me.”

His main work was in the kitchen, laundry, and infirmary. But in every situation, Martin’s life was filled with the Spirit. Stories tell how ecstasies lifted him into the air, how light filled the room where he prayed, how he could be in two places at once, how he had miraculous knowledge, how he effected instantaneous cures, and how he had a remarkable rapport with animals. Many people in his religious order took Martin as their spiritual director, but he continued to call himself a “poor slave.”

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What do we do with this?

Racism is a sin that too few confess. Like pollution, it is a “sin of the world” that is everybody’s responsibility but apparently nobody’s fault. One could hardly imagine a more fitting patron of Christian forgiveness -– on the part of those discriminated against — and Christian justice — on the part of reformed racists — than Martin de Porres.

The symbols that reflect his character and work are represented in the icon above. As you gaze at the image, relate to the man. What might be painted in an icon of you? Who is an influential person in relation to your spiritual development? What would be pictured in their icon?

Keep your attention on Martin de Porres until God gives you the message he would like to deliver through Martin or deliver through your experience of his icon.