A Franciscan friar of Gorkum hanged in 1572 for refusing to deny the Eucharist and the papacy, among the nineteen Martyrs of Gorkum.

Saint Petrus van Assche was a Franciscan Friar Minor of the Observance at Gorkum, in Holland, arrested when Calvinist rebel forces seized the town in 1572 and taken with eighteen companions to Brielle, where all were hanged on 9 July 1572 for refusing to renounce the Real Presence in the Eucharist and the authority of the Pope. Beatified in 1675 and canonized in 1867, he is honored among the Martyrs of Gorkum, early casualties of the Dutch Revolt’s religious violence.

Quick Facts

• Born: c. 1531 (Duchy of Brabant, in the Low Countries)
• Died: 1572-07-09 (Brielle, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands)
• Feast Day: July 9 (with the Martyrs of Gorkum)
• Venerated as: One of the Martyrs of Gorkum, Franciscan Friar Minor of the Observance

Who Was Saint Petrus van Assche?

Saint Petrus van Assche was a Franciscan Friar Minor of the Observance, part of the friary community at Gorinchem (Gorkum), in the Dutch province of Holland, and one of the nineteen Catholics put to death together at Brielle on 9 July 1572, chiefly for refusing to deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the authority of the Pope.

Historical Setting

The Martyrs of Gorkum died in the opening violence of the Dutch Revolt against Spanish and Catholic rule. In June 1572 the Calvinist rebel forces known as the Watergeuzen (‘Sea Beggars’) seized the town of Gorkum and arrested its Catholic clergy and religious, including the Franciscan community to which Petrus van Assche belonged. Taken to Brielle and repeatedly pressed to renounce the Eucharist and papal authority, the group refused and were hanged together in a peat shed on 9 July 1572.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Petrus van Assche

The Church remembers Petrus van Assche among the Martyrs of Gorkum as witnesses to two specific, contested points of Catholic doctrine at the height of the Reformation era — the Eucharist and the papacy — put to death not in the abstract but for concrete, repeated refusals under direct interrogation. Their community included diocesan priests as well as Franciscans, uniting several forms of consecrated and ordained life in a single martyrdom.

Canonization and Feast Day

The Martyrs of Gorkum were beatified in 1675 by Pope Clement X and canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX, in a ceremony marking the tercentenary of their deaths and drawing attention from a Church then engaged in its own difficult relationship with the modern Dutch and Italian states.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Petrus van Assche’s witness is a reminder that the doctrinal controversies of the Reformation era were not only theological debates conducted in universities but questions put directly, and violently, to ordinary religious communities. His steadiness under interrogation about the Eucharist speaks to the seriousness with which that doctrine was held and is still held in Catholic worship today.

A Prayer to Saint Petrus van Assche

Saint Petrus van Assche, faithful to the Eucharist and to the unity of the Church even to death, pray for all who are pressed to deny what they believe, and strengthen our own faith in the sacrament you would not renounce. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, entry on the Martyrs of Gorkum
• Butler’s Lives of the Saints