Lucía de Freitas
Feast: 10 September (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Lucia de Freitas was born at Nagasaki in 1542 and married the Portuguese merchant Felipe de Fletes. A widow and Franciscan tertiary, she sheltered missionaries in her home. On 10 September 1622, aged eighty, she went to her death at Nagasaki in the Franciscan habit, encouraging the other women, and was burned alive.
She is one of the 205 martyrs killed in Japan for the Catholic faith between 1617 and 1632 whom Pius IX declared Blessed on 7 July 1867.
The miracles
In 1867 Pius IX approved four signs in the cause of the 205 martyrs of Japan; the source does not describe them.
Why that counted as sanctity
An eighty-year-old widow named by the Holy See among the leaders of the 205 martyrs.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
- Conferenza Episcopale Italiana - Santo del giorno, 10 settembre (Martirologio Romano)
- Dominican Order, Vicariate of Spain - IV Centenario de la gran persecución en Japón 1622 (Fr Jarvis Sy OP)
- Acta Sanctae Sedis 2 (1867), pp. 478-481 and 638-641 - decrees of Pius IX on the 205 martyrs of Japan (1617-1632)
- Directorio Franciscano (Franciscan Order, Spain) - Beatos Ricardo de Santa Ana y compañeros, mártires de Japón (beatification of the 205 on 7 July 1867)
- Wikidata Q24953319 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.