The Hurons, Iroquois, and the Blackrobes

Remembering the North American Martyrs and Father Isaac Jogues, "one of the purest examples of Roman Catholic virtue."


By Pat McNamara

Now nearly two centuries old, Francis Parkman's narrative of France in the New World is still a classic of historical writing. Although raised with an antipathy toward Catholicism, much of Parkman's writing treated the Church in Canada, particularly the work of the French Jesuit missionaries. Of them, Parkman wrote, there was "much to be detested" from a theological point of view. But he couldn't help admire their courage:

Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild paternal sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death.

This Wednesday in the Liturgical Calendar is the Feast of the North American Martyrs, a group of six Jesuit priests and two of their lay associates. Between 1642 and 1649, they were killed while ministering to the Native Peoples of Canada and northern New York. While the Jesuits weren't the only missionaries serving there, they were the largest and most influential group.

Read more here...