James Miller (religious brother)

James Alfred Miller was born premature on September 21, 1944, to farmers in Stevens Point; his siblings included his brothers Bill and Ralph.[1] Miller weighed almost four pounds upon birth but later would stand at six feet two inches and weighed 220 pounds.[2][1][3] He grew up in Custer. In his adulthood he was noted for having a boisterous guffaw that could startle people.

Miller first attended grammar school in his area before he entered high school.[1] He later joined the De La Salle Brothers as a freshman at Pacelli High School and received a master's degree in Spanish from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota in Winona. It was while a freshman that he first met the De La Salle Brothers. In September 1959 he entered the juniorate in Missouri and was then admitted as a postulant into the order in 1962. He commenced his novitiate in August 1962 then assumed the habit and the religious name "Leo William".[1] But he would later resume using his baptismal name like some of his confreres.

Miller first worked as a teacher in Cretin High School where he taught Spanish and English in addition to religious education. It was also there that he oversaw maintenance and coached football. Miller made his perpetual vows in August 1969.[1]

In 1969 he was sent to Bluefields in Nicaragua where he taught in schools until 1974 when he was sent to Puerto Cabezas and helped build an industrial arts and vocational complex. Under his leadership as director the school he taught at managed grew from 300 to 800 students. He also accepted a task of supervising the construction of ten new rural schools.[1] But his superiors later ordered him to leave Nicaragua in July 1979 due to the Sandinistas revolution that had broken out. This was also exacerbated due to Miller's distant collaboration with the Somoza government which placed him in direct risk of being a Sandinistas victim.[1] Miller maintained distant ties to the Somoza government because he saw that as a good chance to have the government expand the schools according to his former classmate and confrere Francis Carr. But some residents took his cordial relations with the government as tacit support which came to concern his superiors. This grew after Miller received threats to the point that the Sandinistas placed his name on a list of people to be "dealt with".[2]

But he became worried that his leaving would be seen as an act of cowardice and so wrote to the people to tell them that he would return. Even so, Miller was never to return to Nicaragua, which distressed him. When he returned to the United States, he taught once again at Cretin High School in St. Paul in Minnesota from 1979 to 1981. While teaching he fixed things around the school to the point that the students referred to him as "Brother Fix-It" since he dealt with maintenance issues and was often seen with a wrench in his hand. He also assisted students who had forgotten their locker combinations.[1][3] In 1980 he participated in the Sangre De Cristo renewal program in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Miller was frustrated with his time back in his native home and wrote that "I'm bored up here,” and that, "I am anxious to return to Latin America".[2] He was transferred to Guatemala in January 1981 where he would remain for the remainder of his life teaching in a Lasallian Brothers school in Huehuetenango. Miller devoted himself to providing job and leadership skills to the native Guatemalan Indians to ease the oppression they suffered.

Three hooded and masked men shot and killed Miller during the afternoon on February 13, 1982 as the latter was on a ladder repairing a wall at the De La Salle Indian School at Huehuetenango.[1] Miller died at the scene before his body hit the ground. He had sent a student inside to get a tool to aid his work; several children witnessed the murder while watching Miller from a window.[2] Unsuccessful attempts were made to find the assassins and the Guatemalan government expressed regret that the case had dragged on for so long. The government later concluded that "subversive criminal elements" were perhaps responsible for the murder and closed the case.[2] His funeral rites were celebrated in both Guatemala and St. Paul before his remains were interred in the Polonia parish in Wisconsin.

There were some who believed that his murder was in retaliation for the work of the order to prevent native males from being conscripted. Despite students being exempt from armed service, four men abducted a native student named Epifanio Camposeco to force him to enter the military after seizing him in the Huehuetenango marketplace on January 31, 1982. Lasallian Brother Paul Joslin went to the authorities to obtain the student's release between January 31 and February 11 but failed to do so despite the religious’s adamant protests. Joslin later recalled that Miller came to his office in the morning, just hours before his murder, to inform him that he was going on a picnic with his class later that afternoon.

Miller's murder in Guatemala came during a string of priests and religious being assassinated such as Stanley Francis Rother (five months before Miller).[3]

The beatification process opened in Huehuetenango on September 2, 2009, in a diocesan process that later concluded in 2010. This diocesan investigation collected available documentation regarding Miller's life as well as a series of witness testimonies from those who knew Miller. But the formal introduction to the cause came on December 15, 2009, under Pope Benedict XVI after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared "nihil obstat" (nothing against the cause) and titled Miller as a Servant of God. The C.C.S. later validated the diocesan process on July 9, 2010 in Rome while later receiving the Positio dossier for assessment.

Nine theologians that consult the C.C.S. issued unanimous approval to Miller's cause on March 20, 2018. Pope Francis confirmed Miller's beatification in a decree issued on November 7, 2018; the beatification was celebrated in Huehuetenango on December 7, 2019 with the bishop of David, Panama, Cardinal José Luis Lacunza Maestrojuán presiding. The current postulator for the cause is the De La Salle brother Rodolfo Cosimo Meoli.

The La Crosse diocese sponsors an annual Brother James Miller Social Justice Award. The "Brother James Miller Fund" was established after Miller's death and aims to continue his work for the poor and oppressed.[1]

• Hagiography Circle
• Celebrating Our Brother James Miller, FSC
• Remembering Brother James Miller

×