If the faith is denied under duress is it apostasy?

[Mike_O]

I was both troubled and encouraged to see that St. Maximilian Kolbe kept his saintly faith even in the midst of terrible trials. My questions, however, involved those terrible trials. He was in Auschwitz where people were thrown into fires and had their flesh burned off by the flames, were starved, experimented on, injected with poisonous acids … no doubt many people have heard about these unspeakable sufferings. St. Maximilian Kolbe’s ability to retain his faith and persevere in prayer and Catholic action is heroic virtue that befits a saint.

But, hypothetically speaking, what of the Catholic who isn’t a saint? What if, again hypothetically, the Gestapos that beat St. Maximilian also beat this Catholic and demanded he renounce his faith, subjecting him to all sorts of torture? If the Catholic denied his faith under this duress, does the Church consider it apostasy?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The objective nature of the act of totally repudiating the Christian faith is apostasy. As such it is considered grave matter. For grave matter to be a mortal sin, it must also include full knowledge and full and free consent to the action. While the Church would affirm that a Catholic who repudiated his faith under torture had committed the objective action of apostasy, that person very likely would not have committed mortal sin by that action because torture could mitigate that person’s ability to choose freely. While the person would not have demonstrated the heroic virtue of St. Maximilian Kolbe or of other Christian martyrs, he very likely would not be personally culpable for apostasy.

That said, it is possible for a person who is facing martyrdom to first recoil but later repent and go to his martyrdom. The eventual martyrdom can also be considered heroically virtuous since the Church has canonized St. Joan of Arc, who first tried to save herself from the flames that she feared but then repented and faced them. Perhaps she might be considered the patron saint of reluctant martyrs.