• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
A clergyman distributes Communion during the beatification Mass of Blessed James Miller in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. (CNS photo/CNS photo/David Agren )

On the journey toward sainthood

February 4, 2025
By Effie Caldarola
OSV News
Filed Under: Commentary, Saints

He was an energetic farm boy from rural Wisconsin, walking daily to a one-room country schoolhouse where a single teacher taught all eight grades.

Later, when James Miller taught high school as a De La Salle Christian Brother, he earned the nickname “Brother Fix-It” for the practical skills he brought from the farm and his willingness to take on any task, from mopping floors to coaching soccer.

When he taught in Central America, his adoring Guatemalan students would call him “Hermano Santiago,” Spanish for “Brother James.”

Today, Brother James Miller, born in 1946, has a new moniker: he is Blessed Brother James, and he is the first American religious brother to be beatified in the journey toward sainthood in the Catholic Church.

The grave of Blessed Brother James Miller, a farm boy turned Christian Brother who died a martyr in Guatemala in 1982, is seen at St. Martin Church Cemetery in Custer, Wis. The Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage stopped at his grave June 10, 2024. (OSV News photo/courtesy Diocese of La Crosse)

But I’m jumping ahead. Long before he was shot to death in Guatemala, most likely a victim of government forces who targeted the poor and those who served them, Jim Miller was an ordinary kid who loved the farm.

Back in those pre-internet days, most of our rural homes had a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and Miller devoured his family’s edition. He wasn’t an intellectual, but he was intelligent and curious. After grade school, he enrolled at Pacelli High School, staffed by Christian Brothers, a teaching order founded in France in the 17th century. As a high school freshman, Miller felt the call to join the Brothers.

Until the mid-Sixties, students sometimes entered Catholic religious life in high school. Miller entered the Christian Brothers junior novitiate in 1959 as a high school sophomore. He later graduated from St. Mary’s College in Winona, Minn., concentrating on Spanish with a yearning to teach in the missions.

But first he was assigned to a school in St. Paul. Yearly, he applied for the missions, and after taking his final vows, he was assigned in 1969 to a school in Nicaragua where he spent 10 years and quickly rose to administrative duties.

Then, after a brief stint back in the states, Miller was assigned to a school in remote Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

Many Americans have a fuzzy understanding of Central America’s history. Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua all have recent bloody histories of oligarchy, corruption and right-wing militias. The U.S. government, fearing communism during the Cold War, often maintained a relationship with the right-wing dictators.

In 1980, government forces in El Salvador murdered St. Oscar Romero as he offered Mass. Later that year, El Salvador’s military abducted, raped and murdered three U.S. nuns and a lay worker. Blessed Father Stanley Rother, another American farm boy now on his way to sainthood, was assassinated inside his Guatemalan rectory in 1981.

But there are countless others, thousands of Central American citizens who were persecuted either because they were poor, or because they were fulfilling the Gospel mandate to serve the poor.

In 1982, only months after arriving in Huehuetenango, James Miller joined this group of martyrs. When men came to kill him, he was repairing a school wall in broad daylight with people milling about. He was brazenly gunned down by assailants who appeared to flee to the local police station.

In his final letter home, Brother James asked for prayers for Guatemala.

“The level of personal violence here is reaching appalling proportions … and the Church is being persecuted because of its option for the poor and oppressed. The Indian population of Guatemala, caught defenseless between the Army and rebel forces … is taking the brunt of this violence.”

We pray for Central America. We remember Brother James on Feb. 13, the anniversary of his martyrdom, and pray for a miracle to advance his cause for canonization.

Read More Commentary

A loaf of sliced bread

We are part of the miracle

Question Corner: Do I need to attend my territorial parish?

The truth about transitions

A cry for unity

‘Public’ does not equal ‘state’ or ‘government’

Thank you to a one-of-a-kind teacher

Copyright © 2025 OSV News

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Effie Caldarola

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

A loaf of sliced bread

We are part of the miracle

Question Corner: Do I need to attend my territorial parish?

The truth about transitions

A cry for unity

‘Public’ does not equal ‘state’ or ‘government’

| Recent Local News |

ordination 2025 baltimore

Excitement and pride abound at ordination of five priests for Archdiocese of Baltimore

Pilgrims walk in the footsteps of America’s first saint

Juneteenth

Juneteenth seen as day to reflect on freedom, ending racism and Black Catholics’ contributions

Deacon O’Donnell’s ‘normal’ faith life led to priestly vocation

St. Joseph Church in Fullerton

Fullerton church begins renovations

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Pope leads Corpus Christi procession through streets of Rome
  • Excitement and pride abound at ordination of five priests for Archdiocese of Baltimore
  • ‘Slaughter of innocents’ in suicide bombing at Syrian church called ‘unspeakable evil’
  • Pilgrims walk in the footsteps of America’s first saint
  • Trump orders US attack on Iran nuclear sites, as Pope Leo, bishops plead for peace
  • We are part of the miracle
  • Visiting Upstate New York’s National Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs
  • Washington Roundup: Trump weighs options in Israel-Iran conflict, CLINIC condemns expanded ICE raids
  • Malta in the Jubilee Year: A quieter pilgrimage of hope

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED