Isidore Bakanja, martyr (c. 1887–1909)

Biography

A young Congolese worker, Isidoro Bakanja died for publicly confessing his faith and wearing the scapular of the Virgin. Baptized as a teenager, he learned to read and pray with Trappist missionaries and became an evangelizer among his co-workers. A colonial administrator, hostile to Christianity, ordered him to remove his scapular; Upon his refusal, she brutally whipped him and left him without adequate care. Isidoro endured the injuries that caused his death for months. Before dying, he forgave his attacker and assured that he would pray for him in heaven.