FRANCISCO SERRANO, Blessed. — Spanish Dominican missionary and martyr. Born at Hueneja (Guadix, Andalusia) on 4 December 1695; died at Fuccu (Fokien, China) on 28 October 1748.
He professed in the convent of Santa Croce in Granada on 22 April 1714. In 1725 he set out for the missions of the Orient and in 1727 entered China. He resided at the house of Santa Rosa in Loyen, of which he was several times vicar; and repeatedly also provincial vicar of the Chinese Dominican mission. For nearly twenty years he zealously traversed Fokien until, in June 1746, he was arrested with his confreres Bishop Pedro Sanz (d. 26 May 1747), Juan Alcober, Joaquín Royo and Francisco Díaz. During his imprisonment at Fuccu he received the appointment (January 1748) as titular bishop of Tipasa and as coadjutor with right of succession to the apostolic vicariate of Fokien of Bishop Sanz (whose martyrdom was still unknown in Rome), but he could not be consecrated. He was strangled in prison together with the three confreres.
All four, together with Bishop Sanz, were beatified by Leo XIII on 18 April 1893. Feast: 3 June.