July 25th: Blessed Peter Berno and Francis Aranha, SJ

Peter Berno was born in Ascona, Switzerland on the shores of Lago Maggiore, where his father was a fruit merchant. Peter started his studies for the priesthood in his own diocese, but when his father moved to Rome to improve his finances, Peter went along with him and was able to continue his studies in the German College before joining the Jesuit novitiate of Sant’Andrea in Rome in July 2, 1577. After four months, he was assigned to the missions in India under F Rudolph Acquaviva but only joined the mission in Goa on completion of his noviceship in Lisbon in April 1579. He was ordained in early 1580.

Fr Berno was able to speak enough Konkani to hear confessions and preach and was sent to the Margao mission in the Salsette peninsula where he soon won the Marguans over with his lively and cheerful disposition. It was estimated that during his three years at the mission he converted more people to Christianity than did all the other Salsette missionaries combined. He also helped in the destruction of Hindu shrines and temples when the Portuguese mounted their punitive expedition against the inhabitants of Cuncolim in 1582 and hence was greatly hated by the Hindu villagers.

Francis Aranha was born in Braga, Portugal. When he 17 or thereabout, he traveled to Goa, where his uncle, Gaspar de Leao Pereira had been Goa’s first archbishop. Fr Aranha entered the Society as a brother on Nov 1, 1571 and was stationed at the Jesuit college in Cochin and later at St Paul’s in Goa. He was assigned to the Salsette mission in 1577 where he was mainly occupied in building churches and chapels and was looking forward to building one at Cuncolim, the centre of the peninsula’s opposition to Christianity.

On July 25, 1583, Fr Acquaviva and his four Jesuit companions and a group of about fifty Christians set out for Cuncolim but were disallowed to enter the village because of internal problems among the villagers. After waiting futilely for a few hours and no one came to allow them in, they left after hurriedly marking out an area with a cross for a future chapel as the cries from the village became more frightening. Unfortunately, the spot they chose was the very spot where a Hindu shrine had been destroyed by the Portuguese. This angered the villagers so greatly that hundreds of them rushed out shrieking after the missionaries.

The first to be killed was Fr Acquaviva before they struck down Br Aranha with a saber cut to his neck and a lance through his side. Fr Berno who was much hated by the Hindus, met with the cruelest death as they dove an iron spike into one of his eyes, struck off his right ear and when he collapsed they fell upon it and mutilated it savagely. Frs Pacheco and Francisco were also martyred . When they killed the five Jesuit, the murderers slaughtered a dozen of the Christians who had accompanied the missionaries and wounded many others. Br Aranha managed to drag himself into the woods where people found him and attacked him further and even forced him to stand up before an idol and adore it. With remarkable strength the dying brother said, “I am neither stupid enough nor cowardly enough to adore a lump of wood or stone, rather than the true God.” before a blow from an axe finally killed him.

The five Jesuits were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on April 2, 1893.