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The
answer to the question of the title is positive: even today there are
Christian Martyrs; even today our Church is the Church of martyrs; the
Church goes on honouring her children, who were faithful to Jesus up to
the sacrifice of their lives.
The persecuted Church
Let us give some recent
examples. On 4th September, 2008, in the Cathedral of San
Giusto, Trieste, there was the beatification of the martyr Francesco
Giovanni Bonifacio, who was born in Pirano, Istria (today’s Slovenia),
in 1912 and died for the sake of his faith, on 11th
September, 1946 at Villa Gardossi (today’s Croatia). He was a young
priest who, in a climate of anti-religious hatred, carried on his
pastoral ministry with dedication, praying, doing catechesis and
witnessing with courage the eternal values of the Gospel.
One day, he was captured by the
militants of Titus and carried to the woods. After being tortured, he
was hurled into a foiba, like the carcass of a dog. His remains
were never found. The weeping of a hundred mothers would not be enough
to accompany the anguish of a similar torment. The martyrdom of this
priest is a concrete proof of his love for God and neighbours.
On 24th November,
2008, in Nagasaki, 188 Japanese Martyrs were beatified. They were killed
in the persecution of the early seventeenth century. Out of them four
were priests, one religious and the others were all lay common people,
but also noble Samurai and whole families, with women and children (18
children were under five years old). Their stories move us to tears,
like all tragic stories of innocent people.
For instance, the story of the
Samurai Zaisho Shichiemon, baptised on 2nd July 1608,
recalls the martyrs of the early Christians. Despite the aversion of his
feudal lord and the awareness of the fatal risk he was going to face, he
wanted to be baptised, “I have understood that salvation is in the
teaching of Jesus –he said- and nobody will ever separate me from Him”.
A few months later, on 17th November 1608, he was put to
death in front of his house.
In the 1619 persecution, Tecla
Hashimoto, pregnant with her fourth child, was crucified and burnt alive
along with her three other daughters, one of which was only three years
old. While the flames were flaring, her daughter 13 years old cried,
“Mummy, I cannot see anything”. “Fear not –her mother said- do not
worry, soon you will see everything clearly”.
The figure of Father Peter Kibe
stands out of these martyrs. He was exiled to Macao as a young
seminarian. Wanting to return to Japan as a missionary, after an
adventurous trip to Asia, he went to Rome, where he was ordained priest
in 1620. Despite the prohibitions of the Japanese authorities, Father
Peter was able to return home secretly. He lived in the shade and
celebrated clandestine Masses. One day he went to meet an apostate
missionary to lead him to repentance and conversion, but the former
missionary refused. In 1639, the police managed to capture him. He was
taken to Edo – the ancient Tokyo – where he was tortured and killed.
A similar massacre of Christians
took place also in Europe in the last century. On 28th
October 2007, in St. Peter’s square, about five hundred Spanish martyrs
were beatified They were killed during the bloody civil wars of the
years 1934-1937. It is the matter of 498 faithful – bishops, priests,
religious men and women, mothers and fathers of families, elderly and
young, men and women of every age and condition – from many Spanish
dioceses (Barcellona, Burgos, Toledo, Cuenca, Ciudad Real,
Mérida-Badajoz, Madrid, Oviedo, Jaén, Santander, Cartagena, Girona).
There were many religious: Dominicans, Carmelites, Brothers of Christian
Schools, Salesians, Trinitarians, Marists, Augustinians, Montfort,
Franciscan Minors, Carmelites of charity, Franciscan daughters of mercy,
daughters of the Most Holy Immaculate Heart of Mary, Adorer Servants of
the Most Holy Sacrament
Besides this group, there are
other martyrs of the same epoch, waiting for the official recognition of
the Church. The civil war was a period of ruthless persecution, which
pervaded the whole of Spain, causing destruction and death. Out of the
many victims we can remember the simple and luminous figure of Manuel
Aranda Espejo, a seminarian in the diocese of Jaén, killed at the age of
twenty, during the holidays of 1936. His crime was simply that of being
a Christian and a seminarian committed to catechesis for children, to
prayer, to the preparation of young people for marriage. He was made
prisoner, was intimated to trample on the sacred images and to
blaspheme. All this was without result. They threw him into a tank and
sent him to the most humiliating and mortifying works, but he remained
faithful to his vocation. On 6th August they took him out of
the town and, having for the nth time refused to blaspheme the Name of
the Lord, they killed him with three pistol shots and abandoned him in a
common grave. His mortal remains are kept in the sanctuary of Our Lady
of the Martos. The “Manuel Aranda” Centre of vocational orientation for
aspirants to the priesthood was founded in his memory in 1989.
A planetary persecution
The anti-Christians persecutions
have not ended. They continue even today in many parts of the world,
especially in Asia and Africa. The assassination of bishops and priests,
as well as the mass exodus of Christians fleeing from Iraq, their
motherland, belong to recent chronicles. The killing, in Iraq, of the
Catholic archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho stirred the international press.
He was abducted on 29th February, 2008, in Mosul at the end
of the Way of the Cross in the church of the Holy Spirit –the same
church in which the previous year, on 3rd July, a priest and
three deacons had been killed- and his body was found on 13th
March 2008, buried in the outskirts of the city. He was a man of peace
and dialogue, particularly close to the poor, the marginalised and the
disabled, for whom he had founded the centre “Joy and Charity”, to
support them and their families.
A frightful hunting for
Christians is going on in the Indian State of Orissa, where the
Christians are forced to deny their faith, with the threat of death. A
source of All India
Christian Council
reported that a reward of about 250 dollars, plus food, Petrol and
super-alcohol drinks would be given to those who would kill a Catholic
Priest or a Protestant pastor. Last year, on 18th December,
in the village of Kanjamedi (Orissa), the catechist Yuvraj Digal, forty
years old, was found dead, brutally assaulted a few days before. He was
surrounded by fanatic Hindus, was insulted and beaten only because he
had a Bible. The destruction of churches, schools and convents is added
to the killings, to uproot the Christian presence from the territory.
2
On 25th August, the
young woman religious, Meena Barwa, was stripped naked, was raped by a
Hindu and made to walk through a village threatened with death.
Solicited by the Superior General of the Missionaries of charity, on 24th
October, covering her face, Sister Meena held a press conference to
denounce the police, who had witnessed everything without defending her
and had rather tried to dissuade her from denouncing the matter.
3
Violence is the order of the day
in India for some time already. For instance, in September 1999, the
Catholic Priest Arul Doss was murdered, because of hatred pushed by
purely religious motives, with the exclusive criterion of identifying
the Indian citizens.
From the
Dossier Fides
2008 we learn that twenty
priests, religious and Catholic pastoral workers were killed in hatred
to the faith during the year 2008. This group includes Boduin Ntamenya,
a lay voluntary Christian from Goma (North Kivu), 52 years old, six
children, killed on 15th December and the Salesian Johnson
Moyalan, the first Catholic priest killed in Nepal on 1st
July. Overall, among these twenty there were 16 priests (9 diocesan and
7 religious), a religious, two lay volunteers, a man and a woman. Out of
these witnesses, nine were from Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan,
Philippines), six from America (two Mexicans, a Columbian, a Venezuelan,
a Brazilian, an Ecuadorian), three from Africa (Kenya, Nigeria,
Democratic republic of Congo) and two from Europe (England and France);
out of these twenty persons, eight were killed in Asia, five in Latin
America and two in Russia.
One commentator rightly speaks
of a mosaic of faces : “A picture of plural Church, where every call is
not exempted from the “risk of blood”. A church without boundaries,
where all the communities –those of ancient tradition as well as the
younger ones- manifest their courageous faithfulness to the Gospel”. 4
These days, February 2009, the anti-Christian persecution has reached
also the Indian State of Assam, where Catholics are being forced to
suffer physical and verbal violence from Hindu extremists. Witnesses
narrate that, after participating in a religious function, priests and
Catholic faithful were attacked by a crowd of six hundred Hindus, forced
to leave their means of locomotion and to walk barefooted up to the
boats, for a distance of five kilometres, under the insults, the stones
and the threats of physical beatings. 5
The ambiguous use of the
term “martyr”
As we can see, the map of the
persecuted and denied faith is ample and covers all ages and all
continents. Anyhow, the Church has always had to sail “upstream”. In
fact, the Gospel is the Good News, which unluckily does not find an easy
listening in hearts shut up to love and truth.
In speaking of today’s
witnesses to the Christian faith, we have deliberately avoided to
use the word martyr. In fact, the term martyr is the official
qualification that the Church awards to his faithful, after evaluating
thoroughly the sacrifice of their lives.
Unfortunately, this word is
often applied incorrectly to the fanatics, the kamikaze, who make
themselves to explode in the name of their faith and in hatred for the
faith or ideas of others, causing massacres of innocent people. As we
can already see, the difference is abyssal. While the Christian martyr
is an innocent victim of merciless torturers, the
kamikaze,
self-called martyrs, are exalted suicides and true murderers of
faultless victims. Moreover, the Christian martyr gives up his life
freely for Jesus, forgiving their murderers and giving a testimony of
love, while the terrorists provoke the death of their supposed enemies,
offering a testimony of hatred and unheard ferocity, such as the tragedy
of the Twin Towers on 11th September, 2001, in New York.
Therefore, we rightly speak
about the distorted concept of martyrdom, which the fundamentalist
Muslims have. Their self-explosion is not martyrdom, but murder and
crime. The usual images of young people with the Koran in their hands
and the belt padded with T. N. T. are tragic icons of crisis, of despair
and loneliness, which provoke only horror and repulsion.
6
The Christian concept of
martyr
Thus, what is the Christian
meaning of martyr? In the Catholic tradition, martyrdom is a
supreme act of love for God. More concretely, martyrdom is the voluntary
acceptance of suffering and death to witness one’s faith in Christ.
Through his bloodshed the martyr becomes like Jesus, who freely accepted
death on the cross for the salvation of the world. Martyrdom, therefore,
is a participation in the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. This is why it
has always been appreciated by the Church as an outstanding gift and as
a supreme proof of love.
Starting from the first
Christian martyr, the deacon St. Stephen, and from the twelve apostles,
most of whom suffered martyrdom, many baptised were called to confess
Christ before men and to follow the path of the cross during the old
persecutions, which have never been missing along the history of the
Church. The ancient persecutions promoted by the Roman emperors remain
sadly notorious, but equally ruthless –beside what has already been
mentioned- were the persecutions of the last century in Mexico, Spain
and the communist countries during the Nazism regime.
One may say that beside the
golden thread of the Eucharist there is also the red thread of
martyrdom, which gathers the twenty centuries of Christianity in a
unique spiritual offering to the Father. Persecutions remain constant in
the life of the Church, and our mother the Church works an on going
discernment to evaluate her children’s testimony of martyrdom.
Let us remember the martyrdom of
two great consecrated figures: the Polish St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was
killed in the lager of Auschwitz, and Edith Stein, the Hebrew woman
converted to Christianity, who became a Carmelite with the name of
Theresa Benedict of the Cross, exterminated in the contiguous lager of
Birkenau and canonised by John Paul II in 1998.
However, the countless faces of
expert witnesses during the atheist and totalitarian regimes will remain
unknown for ever. Their sacrifice was consumed in almost absolute
secrecy, without leaving any trace behind, except their tortured bodies
(sometimes not even these).
The identity of the
martyrs: «I am a Christian»
Deeper studies have revealed the
meaning of martyrdom. Martyrs are baptised persons faithful to Christ up
to the offering of life. Their true and unique identity is “to be
Christians”. This is how the deacon Santo, one of the martyrs in Lyon,
answered his judges and his murderers. Here is the story of Eusebius
from Caesarea in his
Storia
Ecclesiastica,:
«As far as Santo is concerned, he bravely endured all the unbridled
brutalities and inhuman violence inflicted to him by wicked men, who
hoped that, with the insistence and hard tortures, they would be able to
draw out of his mouth some blasphemous words, but Santo faced everything
with firmness.(…) He replied in Latin to whatever he was asked, “I am a
Christian”. This and only this he invariably stated about his name,
citizenship, race, everything” 8
The identity of the martyr is
his Baptism in Christ, beyond his nation, his culture, his own family.
The tenacity of his faith is surely the fruit of a virtuous will, but,
above all, a gift of grace from God: «Do you not see that the
Christians are thrown to wild animals because they do not want to deny
Christ, and they are never defeated? Do you not see that the more they
are condemned to death and the more they grow in number? It is clear
that all this cannot be the fruit of human action, but of God’s power
and a proof of His presence. 9
The Church has been marked by
martyrdom from her very beginning, according to the prophetic word of
the Lord Jesus, “Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of
uprightness : the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are you when
people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny
against you falsely on my account” (Mt 5,10-11).
«Be prepared for people to hand
you over to the Sanhedrims and scourge you in their synagogues; you will
be brought before governors and kings for my sake as evidence to them
and to the gentiles. But when you are handed over, do not worry about
how to speak or what to say; what you are to say will be given to you
when the time comes: because it is not you who will be speaking ; the
Holy Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you.” (Mt 10,17-20).
Martyrdom is the seal of the
pilgrim Church on earth, “If they have persecuted me, they will
persecute you too”. (John 15-20).
Saint Paul, the persecutor of
Christ and Christians, who later became a preacher of the Good News of
Jesus, gives us the key to understand the strength and constancy of the
martyrs. It is the grace of Christ that transforms their weakness into
their heroic testimony:«He has answered me: ‘My grace is enough for you:
for power is at full strength in weakness. It is, then, about my
weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of
Christ may rest upon me; and that is why I am glad of weaknesses,
insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake. For
it is when I am weak that I am strong» (See 2 Cor 12,9-10).
Spirituality of martyrdom
St. Paul has been the first to
lay out a specific spirituality pf martyrdom, when in his Letter to the
Romans he confesses that nothing can separate the Christian from the
love of Christ: «Can anything cut us off the love of Christ, can
hardships or distress or persecutions, or lack of food and clothing, or
threats or violence? As Scripture says. ‘ For your sake we are being
massacred all day long, treated as sheep to be slaughtered? No, we come
through all these things triumphantly victorious, by the power of Him
who loved us. For I am certain of this: neither death, nor life, nor
angels, not principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing
still to come, nor any power, nor the height, nor the depths, nor any
created thing whatever, will be able or come between us and the love of
God, known to us in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.» (Rom 8,35-39).
The martyr, in fact, is a winner
in the Risen Lord, while the torturer remains in the dark valley of
death. For the martyr to live is Christ and to die is a gain (See Phil.
1,21): «I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is
no longer I, but Christ living in me. This life that I am now living,
subject to the limitation of human nature, I am living in faith, faith
in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.» (Gal 2,20).
The participation in the cross
of Christ makes the martyr to be in solidarity with the redemption of
humanity. His sufferings are the seal of his belonging to Christ: «It
makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make
up all the hardships that will have to be undergone by Christ for the
sake of His Body, the Church» (Col 1,24).
The following of Christ
is the sequela of the immaculate Lamb. In communion with Jesus, the
martyrs do not fear suffering, surrender and even the loss of their
lives. Having gone through great tribulations, they wash their robes in
the blood of the Lamb to enjoy eternally the blessed vision of God: «One
of the elders then spoke and asked me: ’Who are these people dressed in
white, and where have they come from? ‘. I answered him: ‘You can tell
me, Sir’. Then He said: ‘these are the people who have been through the
great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of
the Lamb. That is why they are standing in front of God’s throne and
serving Him day and night in His sanctuary; and the one who sits on the
throne will spread his tent over them. They will never hunger or thirst
again; sun and scorching wind will never plague them, because the Lamb
who is at the heart of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide
them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away all tears from
their eyes’» (Ap 7,13-17).
The mystical identity with
Christ is realised in the martyrs. The assault against the martyr is an
assault against Christ, who stands and suffers with his faithful
witness. «Fear not, I am here and will fight with you», Jesus says to
Perpetua.10 And the woman moves serenely towards her torment. In fact,
she does not go to die, but to live with Jesus.
Martyrdom becomes the door of
life: «”Why do you want to rush to die?” – Pionio was asked before his
martyrdom. “I do not rush to die, he answered, but to live”.
11
This is the realisation of the
words of Jesus: «Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but
anyone who loses his life for my sake, will find it» (Mt 16,25).
******
These brief considerations on
martyrdom and on the martyrs can remind the consecrated men and women
of their “white martyrdom”, namely of their commitment to heartfelt
fidelity in the sequela Christi throughout their life, through
the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Church and the world,
today more than ever, need the witness of their holiness.
NOTE
1. Cf. A.
Aranda Clavo, «Martitio y
vocacione: el testimonio de un seminarista mártir»
in Conferencia Episcopal
Española, Mártires
del siglo XX en España,
Mardrid, Edice 2008,
153-162.
2. See articles
in the daily “Avvenire”, 23rd November 2008, page 3: 19th
December 2008, page 23, 31st December 2008, page 7.
3. See:
L.LARIVERA, «The persecutions against Christians in India », in
La Civiltà Cattolica
159 (2008), IV, 410.
4. G. FAZZINI,
«A lesson of life by uncomfortable witnesses of faith », in
Avvenire,
31st December 2008, 2.
5. See: «In the
Indian State of Assam: new violence on Catholics», in
L’Osservatore Romano,
3rd February 2009, 6.
6. See: the
analysis concerning K. FOUAD ALLAM, «The Martyrdom of contemporary
Islam», in Amore di
Dio, Brescia,
Morcelliana 2008, 275-287.
7. See for
instance, the study of M. SUSINI,
Il martirio cristiano esperienza
di incontro con Cristo,
(Christian martyrdom: experience of encounter with Christ)
Dehoniane, Bologna 2002.
8. EUSEBIUS OF DI CAESAREA,
Storia Ecclesiastica,
(Ecclesiastical History) V, 1,20.
9.
A Diogneto,
VII,7.
10.
Passione di Perpetua,
(Passion of Perpetua) 10,4.
11.
Martirio di Pionio,
(Martyrdom of Pionio) 20,5.
Angelo Amato
Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
Piazza Città Leonina,
1 - 00193 Rome
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