AZEVÈDO, INÁCIO, MARTIRE, BEATO

AZEVÊDO, INÁCIO, martyr, blessed. — Jesuit, born near Porto in 1528 into an old noble family, he became a religious in Coimbra in 1548. He served as rector of the colleges in Lisbon and Braga and for several months as vice-provincial of Portugal (1558), but in 1556 St. Francis Borgia, the third Superior General of the Society, sent him as visitor to Brazil, where Azevedo founded the college of Rio de Janeiro. Returning to Europe to seek aid for the mission, he gathered a group of 69 religious, Portuguese and Spanish, mostly young men, and personally prepared them spiritually during the five months of waiting for the embarkation. However, at the beginning of the voyage, the ship carrying Azevedo was captured by the French corsair Sourie (from La Rochelle) off the island of Palma (Canary Islands). By order of the Calvinist leader, the Jesuit superior was massacred and thrown into the sea along with 39 companions (15 July 1570). St. Teresa, who had a relative among them, the blessed Francisco Pérez Godoy, had a vision in Avila of the entry into heaven of the forty martyrs. They were beatified by Pius IX in 1854; their feast is celebrated on 15 July. Of the other missionaries in the expedition who turned back and set out again the following year, a group of 14 fell into the hands of the corsairs and suffered martyrdom, led by the venerable Fathers Pedro Díaz and Francisco de Castro (13 September 1571).