Blessed Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles

Blessed Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles were Indigenous laymen of the Zapotec people, husbands and fathers from the village of San Francisco Cajonos in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and catechists who worked with the Dominicans. They were killed in 1700 because they would not renounce the Catholic faith. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them on September 15.

Both were born around 1660 in San Francisco Cajonos, in the mountains of northern Oaxaca, and belonged to a parish run by the Dominicans. Juan Bautista married Josefa de la Cruz, with whom he had a daughter, Rosa. Jacinto, a descendant of a prominent Indigenous family, married Petrona and had two children with her. Their neighbors valued their integrity. They held in turn the offices customary in the village, up to that of alcalde, and in the church they served as acolytes and sacristans.

Finally they were entrusted with the office of fiscal, which the missionaries introduced in keeping with the decisions of the Third Provincial Council of Mexico in 1585: in each village a man of irreproachable conduct was chosen to watch over the faith and morals of the community alongside the pastors. On the evening of September 14, 1700, the fiscales learned that in one of the houses people of San Francisco Cajonos and neighboring villages were performing a rite of the ancestral religion. They informed the Dominicans, and then, together with them and with a captain representing the authorities, they broke up the gathering and took the cult objects to the friary.

The next day the villagers rose up and demanded the return of the objects and the surrender of the fiscales. In the evening an armed crowd surrounded the friary, where the friars, the fiscales, and the captain had taken refuge, and threatened to kill everyone and set the building on fire. The captain agreed to hand over the fiscales in exchange for a promise to spare their lives, although the Dominicans opposed it. The fiscales laid down their arms, went to confession, and received Communion. Juan Bautista said: “We are going to die for the law of God.” Their tormentors beat them and promised them freedom if they renounced their faith. They answered: “Once we have professed Baptism, we shall always follow the true religion.”

On September 16, 1700, they were led to a mountain near Santo Domingo Xagacía, now called Monte Fiscal-Santos. They were thrown down the slope, beaten with clubs, and killed with machetes, and their hearts were torn out and thrown to the dogs. In 1889 Bishop Eulogio Gillow of Oaxaca transferred their remains to the cathedral of Oaxaca, where they are venerated to this day.

John Paul II beatified them on August 1, 2002, in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In his homily he presented them as models of fidelity to Baptism, of married and family life, and of honest service to the common good, and as a fruit of the evangelization of Oaxaca. In the formula of beatification he set their feast on September 18, but the Roman Martyrology commemorates them on September 15.