SIERRO, CANDIDO (AGOSTINO GIUSEPPE)

SIERRO, CANDIDO (AGOSTINO GIUSEPPE). - Born on 18 March 1840 at Hérémence (Valais, Switzerland), and died in Brazil in 1874.

He entered the Capuchin Order in 1859, where he received the name Candido. Ordained priest in March 1864, he arrived in Brazil in May 1870, where he was entrusted with founding a mission in the basin of the rio Campim. On 15 Aug. 1871 he founded the village of Aldea de Assumpçao, gathering together some sixty families of Indians, whom he had clear the virgin forest; meanwhile, he prepared them for Baptism through daily catechetical instruction, solemn ceremonies of worship, and the recitation of the Rosary every evening. After six months the first 150 Indians were baptized. In 1872 S. entrusted the village to a fellow friar and, after a journey of 30 km. upstream, reached the Turuyara Indians, among whom he achieved equal results. S. was then appointed vice-prefect of the Capuchin province of Pernambuco and planned to establish missionary stations throughout the basin of the rio Campim. At the beginning of 1874 he moved among the Amanayés Indians, who, however, had been incited against the missionary by a white trader. On the first night after his arrival, at the end of Jan. or the beginning of Feb., he was massacred by the Amanayés.