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Faitlh AMv®!
Thursday, September 14, 2000
Martyrs and the jubilee year
FOODFORTHOUGHT
f we were to create
stained-glass windows
today with the symbols
of martyrs, we would not use palm branches, or Catherine’s wheel,
or Laurence’s gridiron; we would depict electric prods, bullets in
the back of the neck, gas chambers.”
asked local churches, insofar as pos
sible, to collect the stories of martyrs
in their area and preserve them.
■ ■ ■
Judging from the pope’s own re
marks and from the reflections of
theologians, one could advance three
important reasons for this emphasis
by the pope on martyrdom.
—First, to recall the martyrs, espe
cially modern and contemporary mar
tyrs, is to remind the church that
martyrdom is not a phenomenon only
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many contemporary martyrs died at
the hands of those who claimed to kill
in defense of “Christian civilization,”
as the story of many martyrs in Cen
tral and Latin America attests.
—Second, the example of the mar
tyrs reminds us that because certain
values and certain truths are so fun
damental, they can and must be de
fended even to the death when they
are challenged.
In other words, martyrdom is the
ultimate testimony to truth. The link
between martyrdom and truth played
emphasis on martyrs is linked to
his constant preaching about the
universal call to holiness. Vatican
Council II in the 1960s insisted that
everyone is called to holiness. The
council also noted that some few are
given the grace of martyrdom — the
highest expression of holiness. After
all, to die for Christ is to die
in imitation of Christ.
an important part of Pope John Paul’s
encyclical “The Splendor of Truth”
where the pope argued that certain
moral truths w r ere always to be ob
served.
One sign of the church’s belief that
fundamental truths cannot be compro
mised is the honor it pays to those who
give up their lives for those truths. The
witness of the martyrs both testifies to
the truth of the Gospel and is an instru
ment of evangelization.
—Third, the pope’s jubilee-year
By Lawrence S. Cunningham
Catholic News Service
In the 20th century, more people
died for their faith than during the
entire period of the Roman pers ou-
tions. That fact is part of what Pope
John Paul II means when he
talks about modernity foster
ing a “culture of death.”
Actually, it is possible to de
tect something like a “theology
of martyrdom” in the recent
activities and writings of Pope
John Paul II. His hope: that
people will recognize the real
ity of martyrdom today.
In 1994 Pope John Paul II
wrote an apostolic letter On the
Coming of the Third Millen
nium outlining his hopes for the
celebration of the Jubilee Year
2000. He said that the Vatican
would update the lists of mar
tyrs (called “martyrologies”)
“paying particular attention to
the holiness of those who in our
own time lived fully the truth of
Christ.”
We can see that the pope
has emphasized this initiative.
In the jubilee year he has be
atified a number of martyrs
coming from different times
and places. In May he presides
over a ceremony in Rome’s Col
osseum honoring those who
died for their faith in the 20th
century.
The 1994 papal letter explic
itly noted that “the witness to
Christ borne even to the shed
ding of blood has become a
common inheritance of Catho
lics, Orthodox, Anglicans and
Protestants.” The pope also
of the distant past. If we were to create
stained-glass windows today with the
symbols of martyrs, we would not use
palm branches, or Catherine’s wheel,
or Laurence’s gridiron; we would de
pict electric prods, bullets in the back
of the neck, gas chambers.
There is also the sad fact that
CNS illustration by Joan Hyme
■ ■ ■
In order to underscore the
fact that holiness is found in
all places and under quite dif
ferent circumstances, the
pope has beatified martyrs
from very different places. Re
cently in Rome, for example,
he beatified martyrs who had
suffered and died in the Phil
ippines, in Brazil and Viet
nam, as well as 10 religious
sisters shot by the Nazis in
1943 in the Belarus.
Within the past few years,
the pope has beatified mar
tyrs who suffered in Africa,
Korea, Japan, China, Poland,
Spain and many other parts
of Europe and the Americas.
By emphasizing the geo
graphical diversity of martyr
dom in the modern age, the
local church’s vigor also is un
derscored. The places where
martyrs suffered were spe
cific, and the circumstances
under which they died were
different.
At the .same time, all mar
tyrs had something in com
mon: a firm grasp of Gospel
truth and the grace (martyr
dom, after all, is a grace) to
witness unto death. So the
martyrs also testify to the
universality of the Gospel.
Finally, as the pope said in
his 1994 letter, when we
honor the martyrs we do so
conscious of the fact that
many who died in the name of
Christ were not Roman
Catholics. The communion of
the saints “speaks louder than the
things that divide us,” he wrote.
Martyrdom, then, is a complex sign
that reflects the imitation of Christ,
the value of truth, the vigor of the
local church, and the struggle against
sin and evil. As such, martyrdom to
day, as it was in the earliest centu
ries, is the seed from which the
church grows in vigor.
(Cunningham is a theology profes
sor at the University of Notre Dame.)
1 here is a distinction between “martyrdom” in a “broad” sense and in a “strict” sense, the Vatican Congregation
for Sainthood Causes said in a January statement, called a “note” The congregation looked ahead to the May 7
papal celebration in Rome’s Colosseum of “the memory of the ‘new martyrs,”’ as well as to the many local-level
celebrations that will take place at that time.
To avoid ambiguity in these observances, the note said that those whose memory is recalled but whose deaths
have “not yet been recognized by the church as true martyrdom must be called simply ‘witnesses of the faith.’”
It emphasized that the observances in May of modern witnesses of faith are neither beatifications nor
canonizations. Furthermore, it said, “such celebrations are reserved to those who really shed their blood for Christ
and for the Gospel, and not for any other ideal, however lofty.”
The note stressed that the observances offer an opportunity to reflect on “the universal vocation to holiness” and
also can inspire the church’s people, remind them of their “baptismal commitment” and encourage them “to bear
heroic witness.”
17 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!