Ss Donatian, Laetus, and Companions

Donatian, Laetus, and their companions are remembered within the wider suffering of the African Church under Arian persecution. The setting is the cruelty of the Vandal king Huneric, when Catholic bishops and clergy were harried, imprisoned, beaten, exiled, and in some cases put to death for refusing to bend before Arian pressure. Laetus stands out in the notice as a learned and zealous bishop, singled out with particular hatred, shut up in filthy confinement, and finally burned alive.

Donatian and others suffered under the savage conditions of exile, exposure, and deliberate mistreatment in the desert. The life is not enlarged with unnecessary ornament. It remains plain, severe, and ecclesial: these were pastors who paid heavily because they would not surrender the Catholic faith in a time of doctrinal oppression.