Fray Leon de San Jose

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Fray Leon de San Jose Martyr
Portrait of Fray Leon de San Jose Martyr
Born	León Gómez García 22 September, 1708 Peraleda de la Mata, Spain
Residence	Mindoro, Philippines
Died	1740 Lean Island, Philippines Tortured, (Death by a Thousand Cuts: Lingchi) place of rest: in the waters of the Cuyo Islands, Sulu Sea, Philippines
Venerated in	Peraleda de la Mata
Attributes	Palm of martyrdom Cross of Missionary Bell (reference to his birth parish: St Mary of the Bell)

Brother Leon of Saint Joseph, better known as Fray Leon de San Jose (1708-1740), was a Spanish missionary in the 18th century, from the Order of Augustinian Recollects, martyred in Mindoro Island, in the Philipines. (UK: /fraɪ leɪˈɒn də sæn hoʊˈzeɪ/, US: /fraɪ leɪˈoʊn də sæn hoʊˈzeɪ/, Spanish: [fɾaj leˈon de saŋ xoˈse]).

Life

León Gómez García, so was his baptismal name, was born on 22 September, 1708, in Peraleda de la Mata, Spain . In his youth he was in contact with the Franciscan friars of the Berrocal convent, in the nearby town of Belvís de Monroy, as well as with the Augustinian Recollects of Jarandilla de la Vera. He was a Recollect novice and made his vows in Madrid, in the former Copacabana Convent , at the age of 22, where he learned Tagalog, the language spoken in the north of the Philippines. Four years later he went as a missionary to the Philippine Islands. He stayed six months in the convent of Manila, until the prior assigned him to the convent of Calavite (municipality of Paluan), on the northwestern extremity of the island of Mindoro, which in those days was the most dangerous part of the Philippines due to frequent pirate raids. There he was appointed visitor to the villages of the Calavite parish , which stretched some 180 km along the west coast of Mindoro and part of the north coast. According to the testimonies of the time, he dedicated himself to missionary work without disdaining the humblest jobs for the community and for the indigenous people , of whom he was also a dear friend.

Islamic pirates, known there as "Moros" (Spanish for ‘Moorish’) , attacked the parish of Ililin on 23 October, 1739, in the middle of the night (this village is now believed to be Barangay Iriron, in the Municipality of Calintaan). Fray Leon, instead of fleeing immediately, tried to save the most important things of the church (the sacred vessels: chalice and ciborium and the sacramental bread) so that they would not be desecrated by the attackers. The pious attempt, nevertheless, caused him to get delayed and thus he fell prisoner of the pirates. They took him to Lean Island, a tiny island in the Cuyo Islands, where he spent months or almost a year of forced labour, waiting to obtain a ransom for him, as was customary with the friars and priests captured there in those times. But his evangelizing zeal continued during his captivity among those who approached him, including his captors, and eventually led to martyrdom. He was subjected to the torture known as Ling Chi or "death by a thousand cuts". This torture was in force in China as the maximum capital punishment until 1905, although it was rarely used since it was reserved for extremely serious cases. During the Ming dynasty, depending on the viciousness of the executioners and the slowness of the process, the cuts could reach up to 3,000 and the agony of the executed could last for hours.

When the news of his captivity reached Manila, the Prior of the Augustinians went to the Governor, Gaspar de la Torre y Ayala, asking him to rescue Fray Leon, but the Governor, who had recently signed a peace treaty with the pirates of Jolo and did not want a confrontation, refused, arguing sullenly that the friars "had gone to the Philippines to suffer martyrdom" . The prior then wrote a letter of protest to the King of Spain, and that was probably the reason why, months later, the Governor changed his mind. But by then it was already too late.

On 2 September, 1740, the Moro Sultan of Jolo finally received news from the Spanish Governor to negotiate the release of Fray León. Unfortunately, by that time Fray Leon had already been murdered. On 4 February, 1741, the official notification of the friar's death arrived in Spain, to La Campana de la Mata, municipality including Peraleda de la Mata, his hometown. The saint ended up being forgotten in the area, although not so much in his town, thanks to the fact that the bishop had ordered a painting of his martyrdom to be painted and hung in the sacristy of the church for perpetual memory. Much later, the Augustinian Recollects of the Philippines visited Peraleda to honour the saint by giving the parish an inscribed chalice that is kept there to this day.

Martyrdom

Martirio de Fray León de San José
(Br Leon of St Joseph's Martyrdom)
anonymous painting, 18th century
at display in the church of Peraleda de la Mata.

Fray Leon's death occurred, as we said, under the torture of Ling Chi, also called Death by a thousand cuts, which some describe as the cruellest death that human beings have ever devised.

This type of torture was in force in China as the maximum capital punishment until 1905, although it was rarely used as it was reserved for extremely serious cases. During the Ming dynasty, depending on the viciousness of the executioners and the slowness of the process, the cuts could reach up to 3,000 and the agony of the executed could last for hours or even up to three days.

The chronicles of the time describe it to us as follows:

After keeping him naked for a long time on a hill, busy with the hard task of husking palay (husk rice) they took his life in the midst of the most atrocious torments. Tying him to a harigne (wooden post) and gathering many Moros with their weapons, each one wounded him little by little so that his death would be more heartfelt and painful, until, having all passed wounding him in various parts of his body, they cut off his arms, legs, nose and ears, throwing his body into the sea. This news, communicated by some Jolo Indians, was also reported by several Indians who had managed to escape from captivity, which, although not identical in some details, agreed in substance, and all together recounted the courage and strength of the religious at preaching the faith of Jesus Christ until the moment of giving up his spirit.

Local historian Angel Castaño adds these remarks:

As the maximum capital punishment, it was in force in China, although rarely used, until 1905. Some photographs are preserved showing several people who had been executed in this way, or, worse still, who were in the process of being executed. The images are so extremely horrifying that we did not want to include them in this paper, but the cuts and mutilations match the reports about the death of Fray León. The details of this execution go beyond the brief schematic description that the chronicles give us about our martyr and we see that even the most terrible version falls short, since they omit out of decorum and horror that the genitals were also cut, the eyes often removed, and finally the flesh was sliced until the bone was exposed in the area of the chest and some other parts, including details that it is preferable not to mention. The mutilations were sometimes performed post-mortem and other times while the victim was still alive. To alleviate the prisoner's suffering, they often gave him opium, or a family member paid the executioner to cause his death more quickly, but in the case of Fray Leon, where the executioners were his own enemies and there was no one in a position to intercede for him, we must assume that no one and nothing could spare him the terrible sufferings of this inhuman execution.

Present situation

His birth house is still preserved in good condition and with little alterations, for which the local association Raíces de Peralêda requests its musealization. At the same time, the parish is trying to start the process for his canonization under the name Saint Leon of Peraleda.

Further reading

• About the Moro pirates in the Philippines: Albi de la Cuesta, J. (2022). "Moros: España contra los piratas musulmanes de Filipinas (1574-1896)" (in Spanish)

Bibliography

English:

• Castaño Jiménez, Angel; Castaño Castaño, Eusebio (2023), Fray Leon de San Jose, a Heroic Martyr in The Philippines (PDF), retrieved 19 March 2023 (See index on page 3). A paper about the life and death of Fray Leon together with a useful context to understand all the events. Being a research paper, it also contains references to all the information. This is an English translation of the revised and expanded edition of [Castaño, 2020] cited below.

Spanish:

• Castaño Jiménez, Angel; Castaño Castaño, Eusebio (2020). "Fray León de San José, el mártir peraleo de la Campana de la Mata". XXVI Coloquios Histórico-Culturales del Campo Arañuelo (in Spanish). Navalmoral de la Mata City Council: 83–116.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)

• Castaño Castaño, Eusebio (2017). "Recordando a... Fray León de San José". Boletín magazine (in Spanish). Association of Local Historians of Extremadura (July): 35–48.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Eusebio Castaño is the official local historian of Peraleda de la Mata, the village where Fray Leon was born.

• Ochoa del Carmen, Gregorio (1924). "chapters 34, 39, 40". Historia General de la Orden de Agustinos Recoletos (PDF) (in Spanish). VII. Zaragoza: F. Gambón.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on This historian compiled a history of the Augustinian friars, including all the details and accounts the order has about Fray Leon in their historic archives, with the original documents of that period.

References

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