Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles (+1700)

Biography

They were both married and had children. They belonged to the town's vicarage, run by the Dominican fathers, where they held the civil and ecclesiastical position of "fiscals", overseers of the "purity of public morality" of the Christian communities. On the night of September 14, 1700, a group of indigenous people gathered to pray and bring offerings to their pre-Hispanic gods. The meeting was dispersed by the Dominican fathers, who accused them of idolatry. The religious had been alerted by the prosecutors, thus provoking the anger of the participants. The next day the indigenous people rioted in the Dominican monastery, demanding the delivery of the confiscated offerings and the two prosecutors. Faced with threats and the growing danger that they would kill everyone and burn down the convent, Captain Pinelo, representative of the Spanish authority, decided to hand over the prosecutors, under the promise that their lives would be respected. The Dominicans opposed the surrender. The prosecutors, Juan Bautista and Jacinto agreed to go out, confessed and took communion. John the Baptist affirmed: "We are going to die by the law of God; since I have His Divine Majesty, I fear nothing nor will I need weapons," and when he found himself in the hands of his executioners he added: "Here I am, if you are going to kill me tomorrow, kill me now." Both were flogged in the public square and then the rioters threw them from the top of a mountain, finished them off with machetes, and tore out their hearts. They were beatified by H.S. John Paul II in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City on August 1, 2002.