VATICAN CITY, Rome — After more than forty long years, Pope Francis has paved the way for the beatification of five Spanish priests who were executed in 1597.

The five Spanish Franciscan priests, who were ministering in what is now the U.S. state of Georgia, were killed after telling a Guale chiefdom heir that he cannot take a second wife.

By signing the decree in the sainthood cause of the Georgia martyrs, Pope Francis cleared the way for their beatification, although a date for the ceremony was not announced immediately.

Franciscan missionaries Pedro De Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Veráscola were killed between September 14 and 17, 1597, after Father De Corpa told a young Indigenous man, Juanillo, who was heir to a Guale chiefdom, that as a baptized Christian he was only allowed to marry once.

Juanillo and a band of his men killed the priest with a stone hatchet at the Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Tolomato, which is near modern-day Eulonia in Georgia. They then went after the other Franciscan missionaries living and ministering along the Georgia coast.

Recounting the story of the Georgia martyrs on its website, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints recalled that Fr. De Corpa not only "reprimanded" Juanillo for taking a second wife, but also "told him that he would oppose his succession as village chief if he persisted in his polygamous choice."

Bishop Stephen Parkes of Savannah, the diocese that includes the missions where the five friars were martyred, thanked all the people who worked to promote their sainthood cause for more than four decades.
"May Venerable Friar Pedro de Corpa and Companions intercede for families everywhere, and inspire husbands and wives around the world to live out the sacrament of marriage with love, truth, and fidelity," the bishop wrote in a statement issued on Monday.

"The first proof of the five Franciscans' readiness to give their lives for the Lord was their choice 'to leave Spain and set out as missionaries to a land and among peoples still partly unknown. The five were aware of the risks and dangers associated with their apostolate also in relation to their safety'," the dicastery pointed out.
"Moved by a genuine spirit of love for Christ and service to the church, they accepted to be sent on mission to the North American territory," it added.

Aside from the decree beautifying the five Franciscan, Pope Francis also signed other decrees as well, including recognizing the miracle needed for the canonization of Italian Blessed Vincenza Maria Poloni, founder of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona; she lived from 1802 to 1855; the martyrdom of Swiss Marist Brother François Benjamin May, also known as Brother Lycarion, who was shot in Barcelona, Spain, in 1909 during an anarchist rebellion; the heroic virtues of Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough, a longtime assistant to and later successor of St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, who refounded the Bridgettine Sisters; the two hid persecuted Jews, Communists and Poles from the Nazis in Rome during World War II; the heroic virtues of Italian Father Quintino Sicuro, a diocesan priest and hermit, who lived 1920 to 1968; and the heroism of Italian laywoman Luigia Sinapi, who lived 1916 to 1978 and experienced "numerous supernatural gifts such as precognition of events and situations, bilocation, discernment of spirits and, above all, mystical union with the Lord Jesus while living in an atmosphere of modesty, humility and service."