On the morning of May 22, 2025, Pope Leo XIV received Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in an audience. During the meeting, he authorized the publication of three decrees marking steps toward the beatification of three figures who died in the 20th century. These include a bishop and a nun killed in Ecuador in 1987. “Servants of God” up to now, the three are now “venerable.”
A missionary bishop and the sister who accompanied him, slain in Ecuador, and an Indian bishop who strove to overcome conflict in his diocese, now venerable.
A bishop slain by those he sought to evangelize…
A first decree establishes the “offering of life” of Bishop Alejandro Labaka Ugarte (1920-1987), a Spanish-born bishop who was a missionary in Ecuador. There, he fought for the rights of indigenous peoples, particularly the Tagaeri. They are an ethnic group living in complete self-sufficiency in Yasuni National Park, and have always refused contact with white people.
Alejandro Labaka Ugarte received ordination to the priesthood in 1946 in Pamplona for the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. First, he was a missionary in China, until his expulsion by the Mao regime in 1953. He was sent the following year on a mission to Ecuador.
Paul VI appointed him the apostolic prefect of Aguarico in March 1965. Although he hadn’t been ordained bishop yet, he participated in this capacity in the last session of the Second Vatican Council, where he spoke in defense of ethnic minorities.
He resigned from his post in 1969 and went for a time to Dallas to rest. However, he resumed his missionary service in Ecuador in 1971, dedicating himself to the evangelization of the indigenous people. In 1984, he became the first apostolic vicar of Aguarico, and was finally ordained bishop.
An ardent defender of the rights of indigenous peoples against oil companies, he developed a “Plan for Friendly Contact with the Tagaeri Ethnic Group,” an isolated people whose language he spoke. But after he and a religious sister were dropped off by helicopter in their territory, the Tagaeri killed them both with spears and arrows on July 21, 1987, according to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
The religious sister who accompanied him
The Colombian nun Inés Arango Velásquez (in religion, Maria Nieves de Medellín, 1937-1987), accompanied the bishop and was murdered with him. The Church has recognized her “offering of life” alongside that of Bishop Labaka Ugarte. The body of this sister from the Congregation of the Capuchin Tertiaries of the Holy Family bore 85 wounds, and that of Bishop Ugarte, 184.
A bishop from India
Lastly, the dicastery recognized the heroic virtues of Matthew Makil (1851-1914). He was a bishop from India who was particularly appreciated by Pius X for his concern for communion. He was the shepherd of a complex diocese marked by division between “northerners,” claiming descent from the communities established by St. Thomas, and “southerners,” considering themselves the successors of emigrants from Mesopotamia.
This bishop, who was apostolic vicar of Changanacherry in southwestern India starting in 1896, proposed a division of this ecclesiastical district in order to prevent the communities from tearing themselves apart. He thus became the first apostolic vicar of Kottayam. He was also the founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
