[Question:]{.underline} What constitutes martyrdom?
[Answer:]{.underline} The word martyr is taken from the Greek and means a witness. However, a martyr, as acknowledged by the Catholic Church, is a special kind of witness, and martyrdom the act of giving one’s life in doing so.
The definition of martyrdom is in fact given by St. Thomas Aquinas when he asks the question of whether or not it is the Faith alone which is the cause of martyrdom, or whether the defense of other virtues also can be the cause of martyrdom (IIaIIae Q.124,a.5). There he defines martyrs as those who “physical suffering to death bear witness to the truth, and not to any truth but to the truth that is according to piety, which was revealed to us by Christ (a truth of Faith); wherefore the martyrs of Christ are said to be as if his witnesses…and hence the cause of every martyrdom is a truth of Faith.”
Analyzing this definition, we can determine the three conditions that must be fulfilled for the full and true nature of martyrdom to be accomplished (See Prummer, Man. Th. Mor., Vol II, §623). There are of course many other heroic acts of the virtue of fortitude, but the honor of the crown of martyrdom is only given to those souls whose lives fully realize all three conditions:
-
True physical death is required, for this is the greatest sacrifice a man can make and the most perfect testimony to the truth of the Catholic Faith. Thus St. John the Evangelist, who was boiled in hot oil and miraculously delivered, is not in the strict sense a martyr, nor the Blessed Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross, although spiritually and through her fullness of grace she is the Queen of Martyrs.
-
The death must be inflicted out of hatred of Catholic Truth. St. Thomas Aquinas (Ib.) points out that the death must be a profession of the truth of the Catholic Faith, either in the form of words or by actions. Clearly heretics cannot be martyrs, but a man can be a martyr for his actions, and not just for his words. St. Thomas also points out that a man can be a martyr not only for defending a dogma of Faith but also for defending moral truths of the supernatural order that depend upon the Faith, or which are referred to God in a supernatural sense. Thus it is that St. John the Baptist is rightly considered as a martyr in the strict sense, as is St. Thomas A`Beckett in defending the rights of the Church and St. Thomas More in defending Papal primacy over the Church in England. Likewise is St. Maria Goretti rightly considered a martyr by dying for purity. St. Thomas Aquinas also points out that those who die for their country can also be considered as martyrs if the human good of the nation is referred to God himself. Thus Garcia Moreno, the President of Ecuador, can rightly be considered a martyr, as also could St. Joan of Arc (although she is not usually honored as such).
-
The death must be accepted voluntarily, that is without resistance. Thus it is that St. Maurice and his Theban legion of 2,000 men became martyrs by offering no resistance. However, infants and those who are asleep cannot be considered as martyrs in the true sense. To the objection of the Holy Innocents, St. Thomas replies that there is no evidence that God gave them free will, but rather that they obtained by a special grace of God, along with baptism of blood, what is normally merited by free will. (Ib. 124,1 Ad 1).
Consequently, there are many persons who die holy deaths but who are not strictly martyrs. This happens if the persecutor does not know that a person is Catholic or does not kill him because he is Catholic, or because he holds to some supernaturally revealed Catholic truth, but for some other reason. This it is that St. Maximilian Kolbe, as heroic as was his death, is not rightly considered a martyr. Nor was Edith Stein (St. Maria Benedicta), for she was put to death for her Jewish origins rather than for her Catholic Faith. Another case of a man who died a holy death but who is not a martyr is St. Damian De Veuster, who died on account of the leprosy contracted at Molokai in Hawaii. For as heroic as was his life, his death was still by natural causes.
It also follows that any persons who die for natural truths, that is for truths of the natural law, are not martyrs. Any persons who would be killed for standing up against abortion or euthanasia, for example, would be performing a great act and obtaining many merits if done for supernatural reasons. But the inviolability of human life and the immorality of killing the innocent are in themselves truths of the natural law, shared by many non-Catholics. Dying for them would not make a person a martyr.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.