A Spanish Franciscan missionary and leader among the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, crucified at Nagasaki in 1597.

Peter Baptist was a Spanish Franciscan priest of the Discalced Friars Minor, sent as an ambassador and missionary to Japan, who was crucified at Nishizaka, Nagasaki, on February 5, 1597, at about fifty-four years old, as leader of the group known as the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan.

Quick Facts

• Died: February 5, 1597, Nishizaka, Nagasaki, Japan (about age 54)
• Venerated as: Priest and martyr
• Beatified: 1627
• Canonized: 1862

Who Was Saint Peter Baptist?

Peter Baptist was a Spanish Franciscan of the Discalced, or Alcantarine, reform who arrived in Japan initially as part of a Spanish diplomatic mission from the Philippines, and remained to found Franciscan houses and hospitals in Kyoto and elsewhere, working alongside the Jesuit mission already established in the country.

Historical Setting

Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s suspicion of the growing Spanish Franciscan presence, compounded by a diplomatic incident involving a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, led him in 1596 to order the arrest of the Franciscan community along with Japanese converts associated with them; the group, including Peter Baptist as its most senior member, was condemned to crucifixion at Nagasaki.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Peter Baptist

Peter Baptist is remembered as the leader of the mixed group of six European friars, three Japanese Jesuits, and seventeen Japanese laypeople crucified together in 1597, an episode that became the founding martyrdom of the Japanese Church and a model invoked throughout the two and a half centuries of persecution that followed in Japan.

Canonization and Feast Day

Peter Baptist was beatified in 1627 and canonized in 1862 with his companions, the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, whose shared feast is kept on February 6.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

As the senior missionary among a group that included his own converts and collaborators, Peter Baptist’s execution alongside those he had led in the faith shows a leadership that did not exempt itself from the risk it asked others to share.

A Prayer to Saint Peter Baptist

Saint Peter Baptist, missionary leader who died beside those you had brought to Christ, help those who lead others in faith today to lead also by shared sacrifice, not only by instruction. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology, February 6, Saint Paul Miki and Companions
• Butler’s Lives of the Saints
• New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia, “Martyrs of Japan”