ST. JOHN DE PRADO, PRIEST, M.

HE was a native of the kingdom of Leon, in Spain, and embraced in his own country the austere order of the Barefooted Observantin Franciscans. Being sent by the authority of the Congregation de Propagandâ Fide to preach the faith in the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, he discharged himself with so great zeal that the Mahometans cast him into a dungeon loaded with chains. The holy confessor suffered with constancy and joy most cruel scourgings and other inhuman torments, and consummated his martyrdom by fire on the 24th of May, on which his name is inserted in the Franciscan Martyrology, by order of Benedict XIV. He was solemnly beatified by Benedict XIII. in 1728. See that pope’s Bull, t. 10; Bullar., part 4, p. 333.