GIUSEPPE da CARABANTES. – Capuchin preacher and missionary of the former province of Aragon, b. 27 June 1628, d. at Monforte de Lemos on 11 April 1694.
From 1657, together with other confrères, he undertook a courageous mission in the regions of Caracas, Cumania (Venezuela), and along the banks of the Orinoco, especially among the fierce Carib Indians, founding villages and cities; he baptized more than 10,000 indigenous people. He published (Seville 1666) interesting accounts of those missions; he presented Alexander VII with the homage of several indigenous chiefs, urging him to send additional missionaries. To these he gave valuable directives in the manual Pràctica de misiones, remedio de pecadores (Léon 1674; part 2, Madrid 1678; excerpts in Analecta Min. Capuccinorum, 43 [1927], pp. 205–16). From 1667 he devoted himself to preaching in Andalusia and especially in Galicia, of which he was proclaimed the apostle. He spread the practice of singing the mysteries of the Rosary in the streets, explaining this and other devotions in Jardin florido del alma cultivado del christiano con el exercicio del Rosario, Via crucis, y de otras muchas devociones (Madrid 1677). For the use of parish priests and the faithful, he commented on the Sunday Gospels in Pràcticas dominicales y lecciones doctrinales (2 vols., there 1717 and 1727, Valencia 1723, Barcelona 1742). The cause of his beatification was opened on 24 August 1910.