Peter of Jesus Maldonado

Early life

Peter of Jesus (Pedro de Jesús) was the son of Apolinar Maldonado and Micaela Lucero, and had seven siblings. He was born in a neighborhood of Chihuahua City known as San Nicolás, nowadays called Colonia Obrera. Peter entered the diocesan seminary when he was 17 years old. He had a great formation process, without being the best of students, but he was known for his piety and Eucharistic devotion. On a certain occasion, after he had completed the Spiritual Exercises, he told the rector of the seminary, "I have thought of always having my heart in heaven and in the Tabernacle." Between 1913 and 1914, during the religious persecution in Mexico, many seminarians fled to El Paso, Texas, but Peter remained in Chihuahua and developed his musical skills. Later, he continued with his priestly studies.

After concluding his studies in Chihuahua, he was ordained a priest on January 25, 1918 in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, in the Diocese of El Paso, by Bishop Anthony Joseph Schuler, S.J., since the Bishop of Chihuahua was sick in Mexico City. Even though his first Masses were celebrated in El Paso, his first Solemn Mass was on February 11, 1918 in the Church of the Holy Family in Chihuahua on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, to whom he had a special devotion.

Priesthood

He worked for the Tarahumara Natives and sought to reduce the amount of alcohol that they consumed. He lived in the municipality of Jiménez and was persecuted there, being beaten several times even inside the church by freemason groups. Father Maldonado was sympathetic to the needs of the people. He used to help the poor with money and clothing, and he himself raised and educated an orphan who was poor. He liked to visit the fields during harvest time and the farmers used to ask him to bless the fields invaded by locusts. There are many accounts that say that more than once he expelled the locusts through his prayers. He had a special interest in the Catholic education of children, youth, and adults, and he explained to them the history of salvation by using photographs.

He was constantly persecuted from 1926 to 1929. The three periods of religious persecution saw Father Maldonado constantly fleeing from the police and government agents. When the persecution was over, he came back to his parish, Santa Isabel (St. Elizabeth), but then another persecution emerged, so he hid again.

Martyrdom

Until the moment of his death he had been faithfully carrying out his ministry in the parish of Santa Isabel, in the town of Santa Isabel. The revolutionaries had changed the town's name to General Trias in their effort to erase from the geography of the state any allusion to Catholicism.

On February 10, 1937, Ash Wednesday, Fr. Maldonado was arrested by henchmen of the government, who had discovered his hiding place in a ranch and brought him barefoot to the town hall. There they beat him, fractured his skull, and popped his left eye. He had brought with him a pyx with the Eucharist, which had fallen to the floor. The men who were beating him took the hosts and put them into his mouth, saying, "Eat this." They did not know that they were fulfilling the saint's last wish.

When the men saw the seriousness of his condition they allowed him to be taken to Chihuahua, where he died on February 11, 1937, on the 19th anniversary of his first solemn Mass. He died because of a severe cerebral damage and several injuries in all of his body caused by the brutal beating that he received. According to his death certificate, Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero died at 5:15 pm at age 44. According to the witness of the judge of the Registry Office, the people who witnessed the event, and the official documents, Fr. Maldonado had been murdered. For the people of Chihuahua, as well as for his brother priests and his diocesan bishop, Antonio Guízar y Valencia, Fr. Maldonado was a martyr.

Historians affirm that the assassination of Fr. Maldonado had an effect not only on the people of Chihuahua, but also on others beyond the state and national boundaries, even more so than Pancho Villa. This occurred during the last part of president Lázaro Cárdenas's term. The shock produced by the assassination did not benefit the newly installed governor Gustavo Talamantes, and it provoked skepticism in the efforts and authenticity of Cárdenas to bring peace to Mexico.

Canonization

Even during his life, Fr. Maldonado was loved by the faithful and had a reputation of being a holy, apostolic, and pious priest. This reputation increased after his death, since Catholics were convinced that his death had been an authentic martyrdom, i.e., that he had been killed because of his faithfulness in carrying out his ministry and because of hatred toward his faith. His tomb became a place of prayer, always surrounded by candles, flowers, and votive offerings.

Some years after his death, bishop Guízar, convinced that one day his process of canonization would be started, asked Msgr. Martín L. Quiñones to gather all the material he could about the life and martyrdom of Fr. Maldonado. In 1975, Adalberto Almeida y Merino, Archbishop of Chihuahua, officially named Msgr. Quiñones the promoter of the cause of canonization of the Chihuahuan martyr. Quiñones worked several years together with the Episcopal Commission for the Introduction of the Beatification Processes of the Mexican Martyrs, since Fr. Maldonado's cause had been joined to those of the other priests and lay martyrs in during the persecution of president Calles.

Since these causes had been delayed because some of the processes were slower than others, on October 12, 1984, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints exhorted the Archdiocese of Chihuahua to speed up Fr. Maldonado's process, formally initiating the cause of canonization.

On November 22, 1992, Fr. Maldonado was beatified by St. John Paul II. On May 25, 2000, he was canonized also by St. John Paul II, confirming thus the popular belief of his martyrdom and holiness.

Relics

The relics of St. Peter of Jesus Maldonado are found in a wooden urn in the Chapel of the Lord of Mapimí in the Cathedral of Chihuahua. There is a traveling urn that contains some of his bodily remains, and this reliquary visits the parishes throughout the diocese. In the parish of Santa Isabel is kept the confessional used by the saint. The Fraternity of St. Pius X venerates in the Chapel of San José in Chihuahua the cloth with blood that covered the body of St. Peter of Jesus in the hospital. During the beatification ceremony, St. John Paul II kissed the relic of the Chihuahuan martyr.