Marcos Criado

Marcos Criado was a Spanish Franciscan friar, missionary, and martyr of the sixteenth century. He was born in 1522 in Andújar, in the province of Jaén in Andalusia. He entered the Order of Friars Minor and lived under the Franciscan rule. Little independent documentation survives about his family or the precise circumstances of his vocation; later lives of the blessed largely reflect Franciscan hagiographical tradition rather than a dense contemporary archive. What is consistently reported is that he was formed as a preacher and sent to the Kingdom of Granada, conquered in 1492, which remained a difficult mission field among a large Morisco population.

In the sixteenth century the Moriscos—Muslims who had accepted baptism, often under pressure—remained distinct in language and custom, and in many cases in clandestine religious practice. Royal and ecclesiastical policy aimed at their fuller assimilation to Catholic Christianity through preaching, pastoral work, and increasingly restrictive legislation. Franciscans were among the orders engaged in this work. Criado is remembered as a missionary in the mountainous districts of Granada, including areas associated with the Alpujarras. Accounts of his ministry emphasize catechesis and preaching among Morisco communities. Suspicion and coercion on one side, and resentment and crypto-Islam on the other, made such work dangerous even before open war.

That danger became lethal during the Rebellion of the Alpujarras, which broke out in late 1568 against the policies of Philip II. The rising spread through the sierra and was accompanied by attacks on churches, clergy, and Old Christian settlers. In 1569, according to the tradition accepted in his cult and in the later beatification, Marcos Criado was captured by Morisco rebels at La Peza in the province of Granada. He was put to death there, on or about 24 September 1569, and is venerated as a martyr killed in hatred of the faith. Later narratives often describe a violent death by stoning; such particulars should be treated with the caution due to martyr acts written or elaborated well after the event. He was in his late forties.

Local and Franciscan devotion to Criado continued in Andalusia after the revolt was crushed and after the Moriscos of Granada were deported from the kingdom in the following years. In the nineteenth century his cause was advanced at Rome. Pope Leo XIII beatified him on 24 July 1899. He is known as Blessed Marcos Criado (in some languages Blessed Mark Criado) and was not subsequently canonized, remaining in the rank of the blessed. His liturgical commemoration is kept in late September, in connection with the traditional date of his martyrdom. Consistent with his life as a professed Franciscan, there is no record of marriage or children. He is associated in memory with Andújar, his birthplace, and with La Peza, the place of his death.