Saint of the Day – 8 August – Blessed William of Castellammare di Stabia OFM (Died 1364) Martyr

Saint of the Day – 8 August – Blessed William of Castellammare di Stabia OFM (Died 1364) Martyr, Friar of the Order of Friar’s Minor, Missionary to Palestine. Born in Castellammare di Stabia, Naples, Italy and died a most horrific death in 1364 in Gaza, Palestine. His body and all his property, including his Breviary, were burned. We have no images of Blessed William – those below are of various Franciscan Martyrs.

Franciscans, have, from the earliest times of St Francis, had, as one of their objectives, the evangelisation of the Islamic world. Already St Francis went to Palestine in 1219, after two unsuccessful attempts, presenting himself to the Sultan Al-Malik al Kamil, establishing an interesting contact, which revealed, after the centuries-old struggles between Saracens and Christians, the possibility, at least on the Christian side, of a dialogue of the love between the two great religions, for their common origins in Abraham.

In 1220, one of the first disciples of Francis, the learned and miracle-worker St Anthony of Padua, attempted to go to North Africa among the Saracens, but a storm forced him to be shipwrecked in Sicily. But, already at that time, the beginning of 1220, there were the first Franciscan Martyrs at the hands of the Saracens – St Francis had sent five Friars as Missionaries to Muslim-occupied Spain, Saints Berard, Peter, Otho, Accursius, and Adjutus, considered the Protomartyrs of the Franciscans. They began to preach in the Mosques and were, therefore sentenced to death by the Sultan but then they were pardoned and, like so many other Christians in the region, sent to Morocco to work as forced labourers.

However, the courageous Friars continued to preach the Gospel and were imprisoned again, they were flogged and finally beheaded on 16 January 1220. After them, many Franciscans lost their lives in an attempt to spread the Gospel in the hostile and closed Muslim world. Already, in 1227, there were seven more Franciscan Martyrs in Morocco, the Saints Daniel and companions and other Orders also brought their bloody contribution to the conversion of the Saracens, who, it is good to remember, dominated the coasts of the Mediterranean with violent raids, plundering, killing, kidnapping women and men enslaved, all in the name of a ‘holy war’ in name of Allah. The Mercedarian Order distinguished itself in that sad period, for the ransom of Christians from slavery in Arab land and many of them died Martyrs amid unheard-of torments.

This was the situation of those centuries of terror and the Holy Land was occupied by Muslims, generating the phenomenon of the Crusades, which sharpened even more the ideological contrast and the bloody clashes between the Christian and Muslim worlds, with excesses from both sides.

In this historical-religious context, the story of the Franciscan Friar Minor, Blessed William of Castellammare di Stabia, a native of the beautiful, historic, rich in thermal waters, City of the Gulf of Naples.

Unfortunately we have not received much information of this Franciscan Missionary in Palestine but that he proclaimed the Gospel publicly, courageously accusing the Muslim religion of falsehood. Perhaps, at the time, there was no other way to carry out the Apostolate, other than to make these public sermons which evidently were striking, both for the content and the great courage shown in preaching in this way at all!

Naturally, William was arrested and during his detention they tried to make him apostatise with threats and promises, it does not appear that he was tortured, as happened to many others. Refusing all attempts to bend his staunch convictions, William was finally Martyred in 1364 in Gaza (apparently sawn in two).

His body was burned together with his Breviary with which he recited the canonical prayers – the bodies of the Martyrs were burned so as not to create a cult of Relics among Christians, a cult which Muslims saw as smoke and mirrors.

Blessed William is commemorated on 8 August.