At Santo Domingo Xagacía in Mexico, Blessed John Baptist and Jacinth de los Angeles, martyrs, who, being catechists, when they refused to worship idols for Christ’s sake, were savagely beaten and, imitating the Passion of Christ, merited the eternal reward.
Lifespan: †1700
Beatified: 1 August 2002 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 15 September
Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:10).
Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles were Zapotec indigenous people of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, born in 1660 in San Francisco Cajonos. Juan Bautista married Josefa de la Cruz, with whom he had a daughter named Rosa. Jacinto de los Ángeles married Petrona de los Ángeles, with whom he had two children named Juan and Nicolasa. Both belonged to the parish of San Francisco Cajonos, served by the Dominican fathers Gaspar de los Reyes and Alonso de Vargas.
Of both it is known that they were men of integrity in their personal, married, and family life, as well as in the fulfillment of their civic duties, holding the various civil offices customary in their town and time — topil, judge of the tequio, mayor de vara, aldermen, president, síndico, and alcalde — thereby showing their appreciation for cultural traditions and their sense of responsibility in the discharge of civic duties.
Likewise, it is established that both were baptized, evangelized, and catechized persons who also held the various offices accessible to the faithful at that time: acolyte, minor and major sacristan, and topilillo.
Finally, they held the civil and ecclesiastical office of Fiscal, which the missionaries introduced or fostered among the indigenous people. The Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585 desired “that in each town an elder distinguished by his irreproachable conduct be chosen, who alongside the parish priests would be the perpetual censor of public morals” (Fr. Antonio Gay, Historia de Oaxaca, II.V.2). “His principal duty is to inquire into offenses and vices that disturb public morality, disclosing to the parish priest cases of concubinage, adultery, unlawful separation, perjury, blasphemy, and infidelity” (ibid.; cf. Third Mexican Council, Book I, Title IX, 1, 23).
On the night of 14 September 1700, the two Fiscales discovered that a large group of people from San Francisco Cajonos and neighboring villages were conducting a rite of ancestral religion in a private house. They informed the Dominican fathers; the Fiscales and the Fathers, accompanied by Captain Antonio Rodríguez Pinelo, went to the place, surprised those gathered, dispersed the assembly, collected the cult offerings, and returned to the convent.
The following day, the townspeople rose in revolt, demanding the return of the confiscated offerings and the surrender of the Fiscales. Taking refuge in the convent, the Fathers, the Fiscales, and the civil authority spent the afternoon amid demands and negotiations. At last, faced with mounting threats to kill everyone and burn the convent, Captain Pinelo decided to surrender the Fiscales, under a promise that their lives would be spared.
The Fathers refused to hand them over. But the Fiscales laid down their arms, accepting the prospect of death; they made their confessions and received Holy Communion. Juan Bautista said: “We are going to die for the law of God; since I hold His Divine Majesty within me, I fear nothing and have no need of weapons.” Finding himself in the hands of his executioners, he added: “Here I am — if you are to kill me tomorrow, kill me now.” As they were beaten at the pillory in the public square, they called out to the Fathers watching from the window: “Fathers, commend us to God.” And when their executioners mocked them, saying, “Did the chocolate the Fathers gave you taste good?” they answered with silence.
On the 16th the executioners led the Fiscales to San Pedro, where they flogged them again and imprisoned them. When the executioners invited the Fiscales to renounce the Catholic faith in exchange for a pardon, they replied: “Since we have professed Baptism, we will always continue to follow the true religion.” They were then led up and down mountain slopes to Mount Xagacía, formerly called “Of the Leaves,” where, bound, they were hurled over the edge, nearly beheaded, killed with machete blows, and had their hearts torn out and thrown to the dogs — which would not eat them. Their executioners Nicolás Aquino and Francisco López drank the martyrs’ blood, to recover their courage and strengthen themselves in accordance with the custom of drinking the blood of hunted animals, but also as a sign of hatred and rage, recalling an ancestral saying still heard to this day: “I am going to drink your blood.” The two were buried on that very mountain, which has been called Monte Fiscal Santos — the Mountain of the Holy Fiscales — ever since.
Some hold that the Fiscales were not martyrs but informers of their fellow countrymen and traitors to their culture. It is clear, however, that they were appointed, both civilly and religiously, to the exercise of a public office within the town and within the religious community. Moreover, from the very beginning — in the civil trial conducted between 1700 and 1703, and in the ecclesiastical process continuing to the present day — there has persisted a reputation of martyrdom and holiness that the Church has now recognized with their Beatification.