Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores - Missionary, Apostle of Guam, Martyr, Master and Friend of St. Pedro Calungsod

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores

In the previous blogposts, we have featured the life and martyrdom of St. Lorenzo Ruiz and the heroic martyrdom of his companion martyrs in a separate article. Due to its good number of readership on both the lives of St. Lorenzo Ruiz and his companions, it is just fitting to do the same to our second Filipino saint, St. Pedro Calungsod where he is in fact one of the assistants of the great Missionary and Martyr of Guam - Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores.

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores gained much renowned for his missionary work in Guam and his martyrdom that it was recorded prominently in the annals of the Archdiocese of Manila and the cause for his canonization is still under process.

Early Life

Diego Luis de San Vitores was born into a noble family in Burgos, Spain, in 1627. His father had been appointed the city treasurer and had received honors and titles from the king for his service; later he became one of the ministers of the Royal Treasury.

Heeding the Call

Diego was a pious boy who, soon after entering the Jesuit school, made known to his family his desire to become a Jesuit. Even though his parents were devout Catholics, they were strongly opposed to the idea of young Diego becoming a priest. His father loved his youngest son more than any of his other children and he expected him to manage his property and carry on the family name. Diego's parents, however, eventually softened in the face of his persistence, and in 1640, at the age of 12, he entered the Jesuit novitiate near Madrid. Diego's early years as a Jesuit were very successful despite the bad eyesight that troubled him from birth. After making his first vows at the age of 16, he did seven years of philosophical and theological studies with distinction and was ordained a priest in 1651.

Portrait of Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores

Life as a Jesuit

Diego then spent one year teaching high school and the next five years teaching philosophy and theology to Jesuit scholastics. He carried out these assignments well, but his real enthusiasm and talent showed when he went from place to place preaching retreats and missions. His father happened to hear him preach once and was so overwhelmed by his son's fervor that he broke into tears. Luis loved this pastoral work and was so good at it that he was the handpicked successor of the Jesuit who was the recognized master of retreat work in Spain.

Despite the satisfaction that he found in his retreat work, San Vitores experienced a growing restlessness to go overseas to preach the gospel to those who did not yet know Christ. He wrote to the General of the Society volunteering for the missions, but his superiors in Spain were reluctant to lose such a talented individual yet in December 1659, his superiors granted his request and assigned him to the Philippine mission.

Padre Diego in the Philippines

San Vitores left Spain in May 1660 on the first leg of his long voyage to the Philippines. Two months later he arrived in Mexico, where he could cross the country by land and take one of the yearly galleons to the Philippines. The ship he was to take to the Philippines was delayed for two years, but San Vitores was not the kind of man to sit around doing nothing during this long wait. He spent his time preaching and giving retreats. When at long last the ship arrived, he together with 13 other Jesuits left Mexico in April 1662 for the Philippines.

Padre Luis reached Manila in July 1662 and immediately went to work learning the Tagalog language. For a time he was assigned to the Jesuit College of Manila where he taught theology and performed various other duties, but he had always been more comfortable in the pulpit than in the classroom. He spent more and more of his time in the villages working with the simple people, until finally he was assigned to do parish work in the outlying areas of Luzon and Mindoro.

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores

His Heart sets for Guam

While performing his missionary work, he set his sights to do missionary work in Guam, then part of the Archdiocese of Manila. This particular aspiration for a mission in this tiny island began when the galleon made a stop over in the island and none of the crew stepped down from the galleon due to the bad reputation they gained in the records of the Magellan expedition. Padre Diego however saw the islanders, however, brought their produce to the ship to barter for small pieces of iron that they would use to make tools. As Padre Diego watched these naked men clambering around the ship clutching the precious bits of metal they had been given, he was touched with pity and love for them. Spaniards and islanders alike seemed to be only concerned with accumulating riches, and no one had brought the light of the gospel to these islands. He was certain that this was the work that God meant him to do.

Padre Diego began to make requests to the Spanish officials in Manila and Madrid with requests that he be allowed to begin a mission there. However, he met with strong opposition at first; many of the authorities felt that it was foolish to go to the great expense of sending out a missionary expedition for the sake of a few thousand people.

"Sa Pagaabang" by Daryll Tudela depicting
St. Pedro Calungsod and Bl. Diego Luis de
San Vitores waiting for the galleon "San Diego"
for the mission in Guam.

Padre Diego persisted in his requests, then in June 1666, he received the necessary permission and financial support from the queen Mother, Mariana, in whose honor the islands were later renamed. The Jesuit was overjoyed at the prospect of returning to the remote island group, and he spent the next year preparing for the expedition. In August 1667 he left the Philippines for Guam, but by way of Mexico, where he spent several months getting additional funds to support the new mission. At last, in March of the following year, he left Mexico bound for the Marianas. With him went five other Jesuits, several lay volunteers (both Filipino and Mexican), and 32 soldiers to protect the small mission party. one of the volunteers that joined his was St. Pedro Calungsod. It is also said that the famed image of Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje of Antipolo accompanied the journey.

The Missionary work in Guam

In 1668, San Vitores set sail from Acapulco to Guam. San Vitores called the Chamorro archipelago "Islas Marianas" in honour of the Queen Regent of Spain, Maria Ana of Austria, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The missionary landed on Guam in the village of Hagåtña and was greeted by Chief Kepuha. Kepuha's family donated land to establish the first Catholic mission on Guam. On February 2, 1669 Padre San Vitores established the first Catholic Church in Hagåtña and dedicated it to "Dulce Nombre de Maria."

The Chamorros initially welcomed San Vitores and the other Catholic missionaries and hundreds were readily converted. This enthusiasm for Catholicism did not last long, however, as several factors quickly came into play including the conflicts it created in the hierarchal caste system of the Chamorros. The church preached that once baptized, people were equal in the eyes of God. The missionary’s dogmatic zeal was also not well received as the Jesuits shunned long-standing traditional beliefs and practices in trying to assimilate the Chamorros in Christian doctrine. This included the rejection of the Chamorros long standing veneration of ancestors.

After Chief Kepuha's death in 1669, Spanish missionary and Chamorro relations worsened and the Chamorro - Spanish War began in 1671, led on the Chamorro side by Maga'låhi Hurao. After several attacks on the Spanish mission, a peace was negotiated. Though Padre Diego claimed to want to emulate Saint Francis Xavier, who did not use soldiers in his missionary efforts in India, as his model priest, he also felt that a military presence would be necessary to protect the priests serving Guam. In 1672, San Vitores ordered Churches built in four villages, including Merizo. Later that year, Chamorro resistance increased.

The Martyrdom of Bl. Diego Luis de San Vitores

Martyrdom

A Chamorro named Choco, a criminal from Manila who was exiled in Guam began spreading rumours that the baptismal water used by missionaries was poisonous. As some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptized eventually died, many believed the story and held the missionaries responsible. Choco was readily supported by the macanjas (medicine men) and the urritaos (young males) who despised the missionaries.

In their search for a runaway companion named Esteban, Padre Diego and his Visayan companion Pedro Calungsod came to the village of Tumon, Guam on April 2, 1672. There they learnt that the wife of the village chief Matapang gave birth to a daughter, and they immediately went to baptize the child. Influenced by the calumnies of Choco, the chief strongly opposed; to give Mata'pang some time to calm down, the missionaries gathered the children and some adults of the village at the nearby shore and started chanting with them the tenets of the Catholic religion. They invited Mata'pang to join them, but he shouted back that he was angry with God and was fed up with Christian teachings.

Determined to kill the missionaries, Mata'pang went away and tried to enlist another villager, named Hurao, who was not a Christian. Hurao initially refused, mindful of the missionaries' kindness towards the natives, but when Mata'pang branded him a coward, he became piqued and capitulated. Meanwhile, during that brief absence of Mata'pang from his hut, Padre Luis and Pedro baptized the baby girl, with the consent of her Christian mother.

The Martyrdom of St. Pedro Calungsod

When Mata'pang learnt of his daughter's baptism, he became even more furious. He violently hurled spears first at Pedro, who was able to dodge the spears. Witnesses claim that Pedro could have escaped the attack, but did not want to leave Padre Diego alone. Those who knew Pedro Calungsod personally meanwhile believed that he could have defeated the aggressors with weapons; Padre Diego however banned his companions to carry arms. Pedro was hit in the chest by a spear and he fell to the ground, then Hurao immediately charged towards him and finished him off with machete blow to the head. San Vitores absolved Calungsod before he too was killed.

Mata'pang took San Vitores' crucifix and pounded it with a stone whilst blaspheming God. Both assassins then denuded the corpses of Calungsod and San Vitores, tied large stones to their feet, brought them out to sea on their proas and threw them into the water.

A commemorative print/stamp of Bl. Diego Luis
de San Vitores

His legacy and beatification

When the news of the martyrdom of Padre Diego and Pedro reached Manila, Mexico and Spain, bells rang and the Te Deum was chanted; sermons were preached and books written on the striking way that his life bore witness to the Lord whom he preached.

His Jesuit companions in the Marianas mourned his loss even as they rejoiced in his victory but, before all else, they carried on the work he had begun. There would be many more battles further and greater tensions, and long years of hardship and toil before the Marianas would finally attain both the peace and the faith for which he labored so tirelessly. Padre Diego was not the last missionary to die a violent death in that mission field. Twelve Jesuits and two dozen lay catechists in all, most of them Filipinos and Mexicans, shed their blood for the sake of the church in the Marianas.

In the end, the church was successfully established in the island group. Padre Diego, a peace-loving man who saw his mission to serve the needs of his island people, would have been shocked at the loss of life that occurred during the founding of the church.

Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores  was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1985. Blessed Diego's companion Pedro Calungsod was canonized on October 21, 2012 by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Blessed Diego's feast day is celebrated every October 6.

Although he is widely venerated in Guam, his life and actions left a deep impression to our own St. Pedro Calungsod that further lit the burning zeal to his missionary work. May the life of Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores inspired all of us to bring the Word of God the people who need it the most, especially to the society's unwanted, and be ready to give up their lives in the name of Christ.

As we conclude this blogpost, here is the the prayer for the canonization of Blessed Diego Luis De San Vitores:

God of mercy and love, through the preaching of your martyr Blessed Diego, you brought the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people of the Marianas who had not known Him. By his prayers, help us to endure all suffering for love of you and to seek you with all our hearts for you alone are the source of life. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

(Pause now and ask Blessed Diego for your request.)

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be…

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, Pray for us!


Reference:

"Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores", Retrieved from https://aganaarch.org/diego on September 10, 2019.
Hezel, Francis,  "Journey of Faith: Blessed Diego of the Marianas." Guam: Atlas Publication, 1985.
Risco, Alberto, "The Apostle of the Marianas: The life, Labors and Martyrdom of Ven. Diego Luis de San Vitores", 1627-1672., 1970.
Rogers, Robert, "Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam". University of Hawai'i Press, 1995.

Special credits to the owners of the photos utilized for this blogpost.
+AM+DG+