AUBENAS, MARTYRS — The Blessed James Salès and William Saltamochius, martyred on 7 Feb. 1557. Painting by Button (1926) — Rome, General Curia of the Society of Jesus.
(properly: General Curia of the S.J.)
AUBENAS, MARTYRS of, Blessed James Salès and William Saltamochius, martyred on 7 Feb. 1557. Painting by Button (1926) — Rome, General Curia of the Society of Jesus.
In Nov. 1592 he was sent to A., which had been recovered from the Huguenots a few years earlier by Catholic arms, with the task of winning back to the faith, and confirming in it, wavering or fallen souls. His companion was the friar Saltamochius (Saute-mouche), born at St-Germain-l’Herm (Clermont) in 1557. Good fruits were already beginning to be gathered, when suddenly, on the night of 6 Feb., the Huguenots, breaking the truce that had been agreed, suddenly fell upon A. and seized the two missionaries. Immediately a dispute arose about religion and especially about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, in which the Calvinists, faced with the close logic of Fr. Salès, were worsted. They then invited Fr. Salès to renounce what he had said in defence of revealed truth; but, obtaining nothing, on the afternoon of 7 Feb. they took his life. The friar William, having refused to abandon him, shared the same fate. The two martyrs were beatified on 6 June 1596. Feast on 7 Feb.