Roman martyrology: In the city of Marrakech in the Maghreb (Morocco Today), martyred saints Berard, Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis, All Franciscan Friars were sent by Saint Francis himself to evangelize the Moors. They were arrested in Seville and moved to Marrakec, where they were put to the torture and beheaded.

Canonization Date:  1481 by Pope Sixtus IV.

 SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Of the noble family of Leopardi, and a native of Carbio in Umbria, Berard was received into the Franciscan Order by the Seraphic Patriarch himself, in 1213. He was well versed in Arabic, an eloquent preacher, and was chosen by St. Francis, together with two other priests, Peter and Otho, and two lay-brothers, Accursius and Adjutus, to evangelize the infidels of the East.

In 1219 with the blessing of St. Francis, Berard left Italy by ship with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him.

They tried preaching in Seville, then in Muslim hands, but made no converts. They preached on streets and in public squares. People treated them as if they were crazy and had them arrested. To save themselves from being sent back home, the friars declared they wanted to see the sultan. Once in Morocco, the sultan received the friars and gave them freedom to preach in the city, but some of the people did not like this. They complained to the authorities so the sultan tried to save the friars by sending them to live in Marrakech, on the west coast of Morocco. A Christian prince and friend of the sultan, Dom Pedro Fernandez, took them into his home, but the friars knew that their mission was to preach the faith, so they returned to the city as often as they could.

This angered some people who did not want to hear the friars' message, the complaints angered the sultan so much that one day when he saw the friars preaching, he ordered them to stop or leave the country; they refused. When they began preaching again, an exasperated sultan ordered them executed. After enduring severe beatings and declining various bribes to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ, the friars were beheaded by the sultan himself on January 16, 1220.

Dom Pedro went to claim the bodies of the martyrs. Eventually he brought their relics to Holy Cross Church in Coimbra, Portugal. The friars' mission to Morocco had been brief and an apparent failure, but the results were surprising. The story of these heroes fired the first Franciscans with the desire to be missionaries and martyrs too. It was their particular witness that inspired a young man to dedicate his life to God as a Franciscan priest. We know him as St. Anthony of Padua. His feast day is June 13.

When Francis heard of their deaths, he exclaimed, "Now I can truly say that I have five Friars Minor!"  These five martyrs were canonized in 1481.