The death of a French priest at the hands of a fanatical Muslim raises questions about martyrdom and how the Church defines it, writes Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo.
Is Father Jacques Hamel, murdered in France by a fanatical
Muslim, a martyr? The theological question is: What makes a martyr? To the
secular mind, it may seem perverse to respond to a brutal terrorist murder by
quibbling about theology, but Catholics have always held martyrs in high
esteem.
As an act of perfect charity, martyrdom sends the victim straight to heaven. Here we could mention St. Maximilian Kolbe, who during the Nazi occupation of Poland sheltered more than 1,500 displaced Jewish refugees in his monastery. He was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 and transported to Auschwitz. Though beaten, tortured, and subjected to extra punishment because he was a priest, Kolbe encouraged his fellow prisoners to love their enemies. “Hatred destroys. Love alone creates” was his slogan.
In July 1941, a prisoner condemned to death, Franciszek Gajcwniczek, cried aloud that he had a wife and children. Moved by the plight of this family man, Kolbe volunteered to take his place. The Nazis allowed the substitution and he was killed by lethal injection. Pope Paul VI beatified him in October 1971 and Pope St. John Paul II canonized him with the title of Martyr of Charity.
Another Nazi victim in Auschwitz was St. Edith Stein. Even if she had not died as a martyr she would have been known for her contribution to 20th-century mysticism. Edith was born into a Jewish family in 1891, was an atheist in her teens, and later converted to Catholicism. She was engaged deeply in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, but her spiritual director allowed her to join the Carmelite order of St. Teresa of Avila, and she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was arrested by the Gestapo and died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942.
Coming to our times, we have another Catholic hero – a saint and a martyr, Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador. He was assassinated on Monday, March 24, 1980, as he was celebrating Mass. Born in August 1917, he was ordained a priest in Rome in 1942 and was a popular preacher who responded with real compassion to the plight of the poor.
He was appointed auxiliary bishop in 1970 and gained a reputation as a stubborn and reactionary prelate who rejected violence perpetrated by the left as well as by the right, straining every nerve to promote peaceful solutions to his nation’s crisis. He was declared a martyr by Pope Francis in February 2015.
The martyr, as the Catechism says, gives “supreme witness to the truth of the faith.” In the aftermath of Father Hamel’s death, many felt that this simple, pious French priest had given this witness because he was killed in odium fidei (“in hatred of the faith”). This is a term Catholics use to describe the characteristic death of a martyr as one who died for his or her faith.
The traditional definition of martyrdom is more complex than that. It relies on three things according to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints: (1) a violent death; (2) being killed out of hatred of the faith; (3) voluntary acceptance of death.
The third condition is the issue with Father Hamel’s cause for martyrdom. Did he voluntarily accept death? According to the reports, Father Hamel resisted his attackers. For him to be declared a martyr it would have to be shown that he accepted death.
If a terrorist killed his victim not “in hatred of the faith” but because the victim did not pay the ransom, the victim cannot be acclaimed a martyr. Or, if there was resistance, then again, the victim would not be given the official title of martyr.
So the jury is out on Father Hamel’s martyrdom. The congregation is looking for the conditions mentioned above and it seems that he lacked the criterion of “voluntary acceptance,” but until the full picture emerges and is examined by theologians, we cannot be sure.
Even then, Father Hamel might not be canonized because there are prudential considerations about who is made a saint. Consider the case of Father Henry Garnet who was killed in 1605 by the English government for refusing to break the seal of the confessional.
When the bishops of England and Wales promoted the causes of 40 martyrs, they left him off the list because he had been linked with various plots against the Crown. He hadn’t actually been a plotter, but anything which the media could frame as “a plotter declared a saint” was felt imprudent. Some have said that the same might apply to Father Hamel. Talking about martyrdom, they say, only encourages the narrative of “holy war” on which extremists thrive. Others respond that this places political correctness above our duty to the dead.
The language of martyrdom, the fascination with violent death at the hands of those who hate Catholicism, is inseparable from our faith. But that doesn’t mean we should abandon our prudence or our intellectual caution, which are also part of the Church’s understanding of martyrdom.