Saint John de Brito

Saint John de Brito was a Portuguese Jesuit, a missionary in southern India, and a martyr. To preach the Gospel to the Tamils, he adopted the way of life of the local ascetics. He was beheaded at Oriyur in 1693. The Church commemorates him on February 4.

He was born on March 1, 1647, in Lisbon, into a noble family. He lost his father as a small child: his father died in Rio de Janeiro, where he governed in the name of the king of Portugal. The boy grew up at court as a page of Prince Peter, the future King Peter II. When he fell gravely ill in 1659, his mother commended him to the intercession of Saint Francis Xavier and vowed that after his recovery her son would wear the Jesuit habit for a year. So it happened, and John came to desire to become a Jesuit in earnest.

In 1662, at the age of fifteen, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Lisbon. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of Francis Xavier and for a long time asked to be sent to India. In 1673 he was ordained a priest and in March sailed from Lisbon. The voyage to Goa lasted six months. An epidemic broke out on the ships, and the young priest nursed the sick and stayed with the dying.

After completing his theology in Goa he was assigned to the Madurai mission, in the lands of the Tamils that lay beyond the reach of Portuguese rule. Following the example of earlier Jesuit missionaries, he adopted the dress and customs of the local ascetics: he lived in great poverty, ate no meat, and crossed the country on foot, often barefoot. The Tamils call him Arul Anandar to this day.

In 1686, in the land of Marava, he was imprisoned and tortured. The local ruler released him but forbade him to preach the faith and banished him from the country. His superiors then sent John to Europe as procurator of the mission. In Lisbon King Peter II wanted to keep him as tutor to the heir to the throne, but he refused, returned to India in 1690, and obtained leave to be sent to Marava once more. In one of his letters he wrote that he loved the scrublands of Madurai more than the palace of Portugal.

His death was bound up with the conversion of one of the princes of Marava. Preparing for baptism, the prince, on the missionary’s advice, kept only his first wife and dismissed the others. One of them, a kinswoman of the ruler, complained to him about it. John was seized and taken to the capital, Ramanathapuram, where he was condemned to death. The sentence was carried out on February 4, 1693, at Oriyur: the missionary was beheaded. The day before, he wrote to the superior of the mission that he was accused of teaching the law of God, and that when the fault is a virtue, suffering is a glory.

The beatification process was delayed by disputes over the customs the missionaries had adopted in India. In 1745 Benedict XIV ruled that they were no obstacle in John’s cause. Pius IX beatified him on August 21, 1853, and Pius XII canonized him on June 22, 1947. In 1988 John Paul II confirmed him as patron of the Diocese of Sivagangai. At Oriyur, on the site of his martyrdom, stands his shrine.