Sunday May 12Th - Pope Francis To Canonize 800 Christians Who Were Killed By Ottoman Soldiers After Refusing To Convert To Islam.

Church of Saint Caterina in Otranto. 

Sunday May 12Th - Pope Francis To Canonize 800 Christians Who Were Killed  By Ottoman Soldiers After Refusing To Convert To Islam.


Pope Francis is preparing to canonise an estimated 800 Italian laymen killed by Ottoman soldiers in the 15th century. The canonisation service will be on May 12 in St Peter’s Square and it will be the first carried out by the Pontiff since he was elected in early March.

The killing of the martyrs by Ottoman troops, who launched a weeks-long siege of Otranto, a small port town at the most eastern tip of southern Italy, took place in 1480.

When Otranto residents refused to surrender to the Ottoman army, the soldiers were ordered to massacre all males over the age of 15.

Many were ordered to convert to Islam or die, but Blessed Antonio Primaldo, a tailor, spoke on the prisoners’ behalf. “We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, and for Jesus Christ we are ready to die,” he said, according to Blessed John Paul II, who visited Otranto in 1980 for the 500th anniversary of the martyrs’ deaths.

Primaldo inspired all the other townspeople to take courage, the late Pope said, and to say: “We will all die for Jesus Christ; we willingly die so as to not renounce his holy faith.” There were not “deluded” or “outdated,” Blessed John Paul continued, but “authentic, strong, decisive, consistent men” who loved their city, their families and their faith.

The skulls and other relics of the martyrs currently adorn the walls around the altar of Otranto Cathedral as a memorial to their sacrifice. According to the archdiocese’s website, popular tradition holds that when the soldiers beheaded Primaldo, his body remained standing even as the combatants tried to push him over. Legend has it that the decapitated man stood until the very last prisoner was killed, at which point Primaldo’s body collapsed next to his dead comrades.

In 1771, the Church recognised the validity of the local veneration of Primaldo and his companions and allowed them to be called Blessed. In 2007, retired Pope Benedict XVI formally recognised their martyrdom and, in 2012, he recognised a miracle attributed to their intercession. Martyrs do not need a miracle attributed to their intercession in order to be beatified. However, miracles must be recognised by the Vatican in order for them to become saints.

The miracle involved the late-Poor Clare Sister Francesca Levote. She was suffering from a serious form of cancer but was healed after a pilgrimage to pray before the martyrs’ relics in Otranto in 1980, a few months before Pope John Paul’s visit in October. She died in February 2012 at the age of 85.

The martyrs of Otranto were not forgotten by the people who returned to Apulia after the fighting was over. The bones of the martyrs were gathered up, placed in reliquaries, and installed in a chapel just off the main altar in the restored cathedral. Some of the relics were also sent to the church of Santa Caterina in Formello at Naples.

On October 5, 1980, Pope John Paul II visited Otranto and said Mass in honor of the martyrs in the cathedral. Twenty-six years later, in July 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave his formal approval for the promulgation of a decree by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that the Martyrs of Otranto were killed out of "hatred for the faith" (in odium fidei) in Otranto on August 14, 1480. This was the formal recognition that they were martyrs.

In speaking of the sufferings of the martyrs of Otranto, Pope John Paul II touched upon the challenges of martyrdom for Christ, but he also stressed the example of the 800 to modern Christians, especially those enduring hardships and sufferings in hostile lands where persecutions and even death are commonplace. He declared,

Many confessors and disciples of Christ have passed through this test in the course of history. The Martyrs of Otranto passed through it 500 years ago. The martyrs of this century have passed and are passing through it today, martyrs who are unappreciated, otherwise little known, and who are found in places far away from us. [author translation]

Hmmmm.....'An observation about the different use of the word “martyr”: in Christianity, unlike in Islam, martyrs do not kill'.
......You have to hand it to his Holiness Benedictus XVI, he left in Style. “Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be,” ~ Pope Benedict XVI...................'I wonder which religion he was talking about?

Tune in Sunday, May 12 when Pope Francis celebrates a Canonization Mass for Antonio Primaldo and an estimated 800 Italians, who were forced to choose between Islam or death during a 15-century siege by Ottoman soldiers; Mother Laura Montoya, the Colombian founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate and of Saint Catherine of Siena; and Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, the co-foundress of the Congregation of the Handmaids of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Poor and the congregation's first mother superior. The CatholicTV Network will broadcast this special Mass at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.