In view of the upcoming Jubilee of 2025, which will see us gathered as “Pilgrims of hope”, I have set up the “Commission of New Martyrs – Witnesses of the Faith” at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, to draw up a Catalog of all those who have paid their blood to confess Christ and bear witness to his Gospel. Martyrs in the Church are witnesses of the hope that comes from faith in Christ and incites true charity. Hope keeps alive the profound conviction that good is stronger than evil, because God in Christ has conquered sin and death. The Commission will continue the research, already begun on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of 2000, to identify the Witnesses of the Faith in this first quarter of a century and then to continue in the future.
In fact, the martyrs have accompanied the life of the Church in every age and flourish as “ripe and excellent fruit of the Lord’s vineyard” even today. As I have said many times, martyrs “are more numerous in our time than in the first centuries”: they are bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, lay people and families, who in the various countries of the world, with the gift of their lives, have offered the supreme proof of charity (cf. LG 42). As Saint John Paul II already wrote in his Apostolic Letter Tertio millennio adveniente, everything must be done to ensure that the legacy of the cloud of the “unknown soldiers of the great cause of God” (37) is not lost. Already on 7 May 2000 they were remembered in an ecumenical celebration, which saw representatives of the Churches and ecclesial communities from all over the world gathered in the Colosseum, to evoke, together with the Bishop of Rome, the richness of what I myself later defined as “ecumenism of blood”. Also in the next Jubilee we will find ourselves united for a similar celebration.
This initiative does not intend to establish new criteria for the canonical assessment of martyrdom, but to continue the initial survey of those who, to this day, continue to be killed just because they are Christians.
It is therefore a matter of continuing the historical survey to collect the testimonies of life, up to the shedding of blood, of these sisters and brothers of ours, so that their memory stands out as a treasure that the Christian community guards. The research will concern not only the Catholic Church, but will extend to all Christian denominations. Even in our time, in which we are witnessing a change of epoch, Christians continue to show, in contexts of great risk, the vitality of the Baptism that unites us. Not a few, in fact, are those who, while aware of the dangers they are running, manifest their faith or participate in the Sunday Eucharist. Others are killed in an effort to save the lives of the poor in charity, in caring for those rejected by society, in safeguarding and promoting the gift of peace and the power of forgiveness. Others
still they are silent victims, as individuals or in groups, of the upheavals of history. We owe them all a great debt and we cannot forget them. The work of the Commission will allow the martyrs, officially recognized by the Church, to be accompanied by the documented testimonies – and there are many – of these brothers and sisters of ours, within a vast panorama in which the single voice of Christian martyria resounds.
The now established Commission will have to make use of the active contribution of the particular Churches in their articulations, of religious institutes and of all other Christian realities, according to the criteria that the Commission itself will elaborate.
In a world where evil sometimes seems to prevail, I am sure that the elaboration of this Catalogue, also in the context of the now imminent Jubilee, will help believers to read our times in the light of Easter too, drawing from the casket of so much generous fidelity to Christ the reasons for life and good.
From the Vatican, 3 July 2023
FRANCIS
Commission of the New Martyrs – Witnesses of the Faith
Prefect: His Eminence Card. MARCELLO SEMERARO, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints;
President: HE Mons. FABIO FABENE, Secretary of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints;
Vice-President: Prof. ANDREA RICCARDI, Founder of the Sant’Egidio Community;
Secretary: Mons. MARCO GNAVI, parish priest of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and already
Secretary of the “New Martyrs” Commission of the Great Jubilee of 2000;
Members
P. DOMINIQUE ARNAULD, M.Afr;
Rev. KOKOU MAWUENA AMBROISE ATAKPA;
Sr. NADIA COPPA, A.S.C.;
Prof. GIANNI THE BEAUTIFUL;
Prof. MARIA LUPI;
P. DINH ANH NHUE NGUYEN, O.F.M.Conv.;
Diac. DIDIER RANCE;
Rev. ROBERTO REGOLI;
Rev. ANGELO ROMANO;
Arturo SOSA ABASCAL, S.I.
