Ss. Donatian, Laetus, and Companions

Donatian, Laetus, and their companions would not surrender the Catholic faith when the African Church was placed under violent Arian pressure. During the persecution ordered by the Vandal king Huneric, Catholic bishops and clergy were imprisoned, beaten, driven into exile, and exposed to hunger and the desert. Their suffering was meant to force the Church into doctrinal submission.

Laetus, a learned and zealous bishop, was singled out for especially cruel treatment. After a long confinement in a filthy prison, he was burned alive. Donatian and the other confessors endured exile and deliberate mistreatment rather than abandon the faith entrusted to them. Their brief notice preserves the united witness of pastors who remained Catholic when fidelity carried an immediate and terrible cost.