Johannes Laurentius Weiss and companions
Johannes Laurentius Weiss and his two companions Michele Pio Fasoli and Antonio Francesco Marzorati were German and Italian priests of the Order of Friars Minor. All of them were missionaries. In 1704 they set off from Rome for Cairo to begin their travel through the Nile River to reach Ethiopia. But the team experienced significant pitfalls: conflicts in Ethiopia slowed them down and forced their return to Cairo though the team succeeded in their second attempt to reach their destination. Finally, anti-Catholicism was being fomented there under Miaphysite Orthodox Emperor of Ethiopia Dawit III, who decreed the missionaries, who accepted the Council of Chalcedon, to be nothing more than heretics, which resulted in the three friars being stoned.
The beatification process for the three slain friars launched in 1932 over two centuries following their deaths; the trio were beatified in Rome on 20 November 1988 upon confirmation that the trio died "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith).
In the Martyrology
- March 3 Blesseds Liberat Weiss, Samuele Marzorati and Michele Pio Fasoli, Franciscan religious, martyrs of Ethiopia