Jesuit Saints: Martyrs Like The Maccabees

The memorial of Jesuit saints and martyrs Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz, Alphonsus Rodríguez and Juan del Castillo speak of the same theme. They were architects of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay.

The reductions, from the verb “reducir” is a Jesuit way in the missions: they worked with the Guarani people who lived along the Paraguay and Pilcomayao rivers. The Jesuits would like to bring the Guarani to live in towns. At the small mission of St. Ignatius, Roque Gonzalez supervised the construction of houses, the public square, the school and the church. The reductions spread to Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Panama.

To them they focused on the “insignificant” in society and empowered them. The cost, like the Maccabees, was their lives: they were bludgeoned to death by religious leaders and killed in the very chapel they built for the people. Their stories here.

Link (here) to the Jesuit blog Faith of a Centurion, authored by Fr. Jessel Gerard, S.J.