The Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV in an audience granted to Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, on May 22, 2025, accepted and confirmed the votes of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the signing of the decree in which he acknowledged that Bishop Alejandro Labaka and Sister Ines Arango Velásquez offered their lives until death out of love for charity.
The Christian community of Aguarico (Ecuador), acknowledging the news with great sensitivity and simplicity, then wrote on their burial plaque in the Coca Cathedral, Murieron por lo que amaban. (They died for what they loved.).
The violent death of the two Servants of God was seen immediately by the faithful who had known and loved them, as an act of love, not sparing themselves while proclaiming the peace of the Risen One.
As of today, a miracle through the intercession of these two venerables would open the way to beatification.
Bishop Alejandro Labaka was born on April 19, 1920, in Beizama, Spain. Upon completion of elementary school in 1931, he was admitted to the Capuchin seminary in Alsasua. On Aug. 14, 1937, he donned the religious habit and on Dec. 22, 1945, upon completion of his formation, he received priestly ordination.
On April 13, 1947, he left for China as a missionary, remaining there until February 4, 1953 when, upon the arrival of Mao Tse Tung’s 1953 regime, he was expelled. Sent to a new mission in Ecuador in 1965, he was appointed Apostolic Prefect of Aguarico. He left on October 1, 1970. After a hiatus, he returned to Ecuador and from 1971 to 1975, carried out pastoral ministry in Coca and Enokanque. In 1982 he was re-elected superior of the Capuchin mission and on November 4 of that year he was appointed Pro-Prefect of Aguarico and on July 2, 1984, First Apostolic Vicar of Aguarico.
The Servant of God laid the groundwork for an intense and positive relationship with the Huaorani, an initiative that found support from the government of Ecuador, which supported him by providing a helicopter, which he used to fly over the forest and familiarize himself with the indigenous people.
Clashes escalated between the indigenous people and the oil companies working in the Huaorani territories; in March 1985, the Servant of God intervened with the Ecuadorian government to have their human rights respected and their territories defended.
On July 21, 1987, the Servant of God accompanied by Sister Ines Arango, reached the Tagairi tribe by helicopter, which had never before been visited by missionaries. Left stranded, they were killed by spears thrown by men returning from the forest.
Inés Arango Velásquez, the second youngest of twelve children, was born on April 6, 1937, in Medellín, Colombia. She did her studies at the Presentation College in Medellín and at Our Lady of Mercede School in Yarumal. In 1953, she entered as an aspirant by the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St. Catherine of Siena but left the institute two months later. Thereafter, on Oct. 17, 1954, she entered the Congregation of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family. On July 2, 1955, she was invested with the habit and received the name María de la Nieves de Medellín. While desiring to be a missionary, the Servant of God devoted herself to teaching for almost 20 years (1956-1975).
On March 9, 1977, she was part of the first missionary expedition of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family to eastern Ecuador, in the Apostolic Prefecture of Aguarico. On August 4, 1977, she was sent to Nuovo Rocafuerte where she was engaged in the hospital and at the same time of the evangelization of some indigenous communities in collaboration with Capuchin friars Br. Manuel Amunárriz and Br. Alejandro Labaka. In 1987 the Servant of God was in Coca, where she was engaged in the evangelization of the Huaorani indigenous people, again in collaboration with Bishop Alejandro Labaka, Apostolic Vicar of Aguarico. With the latter, the Servant of God went to meet for the first time the Tagaeri tribe, whose territory was threatened by the encroachment of oil companies. The two missionaries who were not unaware of the risk were left by helicopter on July 21, 1987, in an attempt to make peaceful contact with the Tagaeri.
The two new venerables were certain that God offers Himself totally and generously, and that the measure of His love is the superabundant gift of Christ Jesus. They remind us that the offering of ones life serves to spread the fragrance, word and peace of Christ worldwide, and that this same measure of His love is equally to be ours.