Walking in the footsteps of the Georgia Martyrs

When Fr. Pablo Migone was a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville, he noticed on a campus information table a pamphlet about “the Georgia Martyrs.” Although he grew up in Augusta, Georgia, it never occurred to him that the Peach State had martyrs in its history.

Twenty years later, Fr. Migone is one of the main promoters of the Georgia Martyrs, a group of five Spanish Franciscans who were killed along the Georgia coast in September 1597.

In January, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of a decree declaring that the Servants of God Pedro de Corpa and Companions were “true martyrs for Christ.” The publication of the decree paves the way for their beatification, likely to occur next year. 

“From this day forward and until beatification, Friar Pedro de Corpa, Friar Blas Rodríguez, Friar Miguel de Añon, Friar Antonio de Badajóz, and Friar Francisco de Veráscola are entitled to the title of ‘Venerables,’” said the website of the Diocese of Savannah, where Fr. Migone serves.

Colloquially, the group has been referred to as the Georgia Martyrs in order to distinguish them from a group of missionaries known as the Florida Martyrs. Both groups had been working to bring the Gospel to the indigenous peoples living in the Spanish colony of La Florida, which at that time extended up the coast into modern day Georgia.

The Georgia Martyrs were working in villages of the Guale tribe on the Georgia mainland and some of the barrier islands south of modern-day Savannah. When one of them, Pedro de Corpa, warned a baptized Guale leader named Juanillo that he could not take a second wife, Juanillo organized a party to kill Pedro and the other friars. In all, five of the friars died from blows to the head or decapitation. 

As their cause becomes more widely known, the martyrs are held up as defenders of the sanctity of marriage.

Although there was knowledge of and scattered devotion to the Georgia Martyrs in the American Southeast over the years, the cause had become somewhat stalled. Fr. Migone, while at Steubenville, learned that a theology professor there, Franciscan Fr. Conrad Harkins, was vice postulator for the cause. The then-seminarian got to know Fr. Harkins, but the aging friar became ill and died in 2020.

Ordained in 2009, Fr. Migone eventually became chancellor of the Diocese of Savannah. In 2014, he accompanied then-Bishop Gregory John Hartmeyer (now Archbishop of Atlanta) on a visit to Rome.

“Bishop Hartmeyer asked me to get an appointment with someone at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, to see what’s going on with the cause. As a Franciscan, he was interested.”

When an official at the Congregation looked through the file of the Georgia Martyrs, he told Bishop Hartmeyer and Fr. Migone that they should have already been beatified. 

“The next step had never been taken, which was for the cause to go back to the postulator and work with the vice postulator to tell the story, create awareness, and write the final document – the positio,” Migone told Aleteia. 

The congregation put them in touch with the postulator in Rome, a Franciscan named Fr. Giovangiuseppe Califano. He has served as postulator for Pope St. John XXIII, St. Junipero Serra, and the Albanian Martyrs.

Fr. Califano said there was a need for someone to lead the effort, but no longer a need for a vice postulator, since the cause was already in Rome. 

“So because of my involvement in that conversation, I became by default the go-to person,” said Fr. Migone, 43.

What was important now was to get the word out about the lives of the Georgia Martyrs, and the postulator recommended things such as building a monument, identifying a place where people can go on pilgrimage, and creating an image that would become the official “icon” of the martyrs. 

In 2014, Fr. Charles Byrd, pastor of Our Lady of the Mountains in Jasper, Georgia, commissioned a Florida artist, Dan Nichols, to paint St. Francis and the Five Georgia Martyrs.

According to a note on the parish website, Nichols “spent months of prayer and research, getting to know each friar, … and as many details about each that he could find, so he could capture something of the individuality of these five men.”

Nichols’ painting also included, in the tradition of Christian iconography, a separate item with each of the martyrs that would help distinguish one from the other.

On Fr. Migone’s recommendation, the cause has adopted this image as the official one. Should the friars be canonized, it is likely to be the image on the tapestry that will be unfurled on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Diocese of Savannah commissioned Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz to create a monument to the Martyrs, which would be placed at the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady in Darien, the closest diocesan property to the areas where the martyrs had shed their blood. The sculpture, too, is based on the image Nichols had painted. (The sculpture is seen in the photo above).

There have been two reports of miracles due to the intercession of the Georgia Martyrs – including healing of cancer.

But Fr. Califano, the postulator, said that what was important was that the reported healings happened outside of Georgia, showing that there’s knowledge of and devotion to them outside the area in which they lived and died.

The diocese has created an itinerary that pilgrims can follow to get a better appreciation of the Martyrs. 

“Ideally, it would include St. Catherine’s Island,” said Fr. Migone. There have been excavations done of the mission that was there. “We know that two of the friars were killed there – the exact spot. We know where the friary was,” the priest said.

But St. Catherine’s is a privately owned island and closed to the public. 

The next best thing is the church in Darien, which is also close to what was the mission at Asao, where Friar Francisco ministered.

Just down the road from the church is Fort King George, a Georgia state park where archaeologists have explored a British outpost and discovered artifacts from the time of the Guale people. 

Pilgrims can request a tour of the fort, with a special focus on the Spanish missions. 

The Georgia Martyrs website has more suggestions on how to make a pilgrimage, what to see and what to do. 

As 2026 will be the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, the postulator suggested the beatification of the Georgia Martyrs – sons of St. Francis – to take place then. But for people like Fr. Migone and a growing cadre of devotees, the example of Pedro de Corpa and Companions is timeless.