Saint André de Soveral

André de Soveral SJ (c. 1572 – 16 July 1645) was a Portuguese Catholic priest from Colonial Brazil. He was killed during the Restoration War at the Martyrdom of Cunhau, a massacre promoted by Dutch troops and their Calvinist ministers, who fought against the Portuguese Empire in Brazil. Soveral was a member of the Jesuits. Soveral was canonized in 2017 by Pope Francis along with 29 fellow martyrs. André de Soveral was born in Captaincy of São Vicente, present São Vicente. On 6 August 1593 he joined the Society of Jesus (SJ). After completing his studies at the Jesuit college of the Infant Jesus, he entered the novitiate of the Society at the College of Bahia at the age of 21. In 1606 Soveral was sent among the Indians in the Rio Grande do Norte region, but only a year later he left the Society of Jesus to become a diocesan pastor in Cunha. In 1614 he was already a parish priest in Cunhaú (near Natal in the state of Rio Grande do Norte), as a diocesan priest. Cunhaú was a village of Canguaretama, in Rio Grande do Norte, which was formed around a sugar cane mill, one of the riches of the region, in addition to the mines for the production of parts, since those on the other side of the ocean took too long and were expensive, with the threat of low profitability and loss of input in time to be processed by the transformation center (a kind of expansion of Paraiba and Pernambuco production to the north, which is the economic cradle of Potiguar). On the morning of 16 July 1645, while celebrating Mass at the Parish of Our Lady of the Candles or Purification, the German Jacó Rabe broke into the church, with the excuse of communicating some provisions by the Supreme Dutch Council of Recife. But after the consecration the Dutch soldiers, accompanied by the Indians of the tribes of the Tapuias and of the Patiguari, rushed into the church and massacred all the faithful, with the same Father André de Soveral, who died praying the prayers of the dying.