James Alfred Miller

James Alfred Miller was born prematurely on September 21, 1944, to farmers in Stevens Point, Wisconsin; his siblings included his brothers Bill and Ralph and sisters Pat and Louise. Miller weighed almost four pounds upon birth but later would stand at six feet two inches and weigh 220 pounds. Miller first attended grammar school in his area before he entered Pacelli High School. 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 received a master's degree in Spanish from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.

Miller first worked for three years as a teacher in Cretin High School, where he taught Spanish and English in addition to religious education. In 1969, he was sent to 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 at which he taught grew from 300 to 800 students. He also accepted the task of supervising the construction of ten new rural schools. However, his superiors later ordered him to leave Nicaragua in July 1979 due to the Sandinistas revolution that had broken out. This was exacerbated due to Miller's work with the Somoza government on education initiatives, which placed him at immediate risk of being a Sandinistas victim. Miller maintained distant ties to the Somoza government because he saw that as an excellent chance to have the government expand the schools. 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." 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, Minnesota. The students referred to him as "Brother Fix-It" as he dealt with maintenance issues. Miller was frustrated with his time back in his native home and wrote "I'm bored up here" and "I am anxious to return to Latin America." He was transferred to Guatemala in 1981, where he would remain for the remainder of his life teaching in a Lasallian Brothers school. He taught English, religion, and Guatemalan art to secondary level students. Miller devoted himself to providing job and leadership skills to the native Guatemalan Indians. 

Three hooded and masked men shot and killed Miller during the afternoon on February 13, 1982, where he was on a ladder repairing a wall. 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. 

Unsuccessful attempts were made to find the assassins and the Guatemalan government expressed regret the case had dragged on for so long. His funeral was celebrated in Guatemala and St. Paul before his remains were interred in the Polonia parish in Wisconsin. Some claim his murder was in retaliation for the work of the order to prevent native males from being forcibly conscripted. Miller's murder in Guatemala came during a string of assassinations of priests and other religious figures. The beatification process opened in Huehuetenango on September 2, 2009. The formal introduction to the cause came on December 15, 2009, under Pope Benedict XVI and titled Miller as a Servant of God. Pope Francis confirmed Miller's beatification in a decree issued on November 7, 2018; the beatification was celebrated in Huehuetenango on December 7, 2019.