DÍEZ LAUREL, BARTOLOMÉ, BL.

Franciscan martyr; b. Puerto de Santa María, Spain, date unknown; d. Nagasaki, Japan, Aug. 17, 1627. His real name was Díaz Laruel. He was a sailor, and while living in Acapulco, Mexico, he requested permission to enter the Franciscan Order. He took the habit of a lay brother (May 13, 1615) in Valladolid (Morelia), Mexico, but he did not persevere. He again took the habit (Oct. 17, 1616) in the same convent, where he was professed (Oct. 18, 1617) as a lay brother. At the end of 1618 he was in the convent of San Francisco del Monte in Manila. There he learned and practiced medicine in a hospital. In 1623 he went to perform missionary work in Japan, where he disguised himself as a physician. At Pentecost in 1627 he was imprisoned in Nagasaki, and in August of the same year he was martyred. His cause of beatification was included with that of many other martyrs of his time: "the 205 marytrs of Japan." This process under-went various irregularities of a legal nature, and it lacked many biographical data. Pius IX corrected the irregularities and conceded that the servants of God in question could be called Blessed and that an Office and Mass belonging to them could be prayed in certain places. In Mexico there is a special Office and Mass (August 18) for Bl. Bartolomé but the biographical data of the Breviary and the popular hagiographies do not seem to be correct [cf. J. G. Gutiérrez, Vida del Beato Padre Fray Bartolomé Gutiérrez (Mexico City 1932), on another of the 205 martyrs].

Feast: Aug. 18.

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