What is a martyr?

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Hoosier_Daddy said:
Who declares a martyr, what is the process. Many are declaring the French priest one. Is there an authority? A teaching about martyrs and heaven?
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As far as I know the way someone is officially declared a martyr is through the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. It follows a similar process of other saint, but martyrdom satisfies the first miracle to be declared Blessed. If I follow it starts with the local bishop validating the 3 conditions of martyrdom, but it is the panel of theologians in the CCS that would make an official finding that someone is a martyr. The reason it is tied to a cause for sainthood is that martyrdom includes complete remission of sins. There may be, and likely are, other ways that martyrdom is declared, but that is the way I know it happens in modern times.

So following the normal route an official declaration of martyrdom would be 5 years or more in the future. Pope Francis could obviously waive the waiting period to open a cause for sainthood.
 
Usige said:
As far as I know the way someone is officially declared a martyr is through the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. It follows a similar process of other saint, but martyrdom satisfies the first miracle to be declared Blessed. If I follow it starts with the local bishop validating the 3 conditions of martyrdom, but it is the panel of theologians in the CCS that would make an official finding that someone is a martyr. The reason it is tied to a cause for sainthood is that martyrdom includes complete remission of sins. There may be, and likely are, other ways that martyrdom is declared, but that is the way I know it happens in modern times.

So following the normal route an official declaration of martyrdom would be 5 years or more in the future. Pope Francis could obviously waive the waiting period to open a cause for sainthood.
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He was threatened with death if he did not stop saying Mass.
 
JB_Brother_4446 said:
He was threatened with death if he did not stop saying Mass.
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I’m not saying he isn’t a martyr. I am simply saying that martyrdom in Catholocism has a specific meaning and affect. Because of that it is something that is investigated and declared by the Church, not just something that is declared from emotional fiat.
 
Usige said:
I’m not saying he isn’t a martyr. I am simply saying that martyrdom in Catholocism has a specific meaning and affect. Because of that it is something that is investigated and declared by the Church, not just something that is declared from emotional fiat.
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I was putting that fact out there.
 
The modern (though rapidly changing with Islam’s contrary one) definition of martyr comes from Christian culture, especially Christian culture referring to our ancestors’ martyrdoms and persecutions. One way or another, they triumphed (hence why we are still Christians today).

Merriam-Webster simply define martyrdom as such:
the suffering of death on account of adherence to a cause and especially to one’s religious faith
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So a martyr, simply, is one who dies for their faith. A person who does not die for their Christian faith, but rather experiences intense persecution and torture, is a confessor.

There are also uses in which one can be considered a confessor when they do not suffer for the faith in that sense, but lived a very pious life (which is a form of suffering, worldly abstinence). The Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor is such an example.

A Christian martyr or confessor is not one who kills innocent people for their faith in itself and then dies. In that case, they are not dying for their faith, but because of what they have done (or due to its consequences). This is where it should be contrasted with fundamental Islamist doctrine.

One statement of Jesus refers to martyrdom:
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:35, ESV)
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And, in perfect accordance with the understanding still held by Christian orthodoxy, Paul says that martyrs will gain when they die (Heaven, that is!):
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21, ESV)
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Usige said:
I’m not saying he isn’t a martyr. I am simply saying that martyrdom in Catholocism has a specific meaning and affect. Because of that it is something that is investigated and declared by the Church, not just something that is declared from emotional fiat.
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The criteria is straightforward and really not matter for expansive discussion in its application. The definition of martyrdom that prevails in the Occidental Church is that the follower of Jesus was killed in odium fidei.

This has been repeated consistently by the Holy See.

*Pope John Paul II has canonized Saint Maximilian Kolbe and beatified 266 martyrs of our century. 218 of them were martyrs of religious persecution in Spain, caused by Communism between 1934 and 1939; 25 were martyrs of persecution in Mexico carried out by the local government in the 1920s and 1930s; 10 were witnesses of the faith during the Nazi-Socialist regime in Germany and Europe. The remaining eleven, belonging to various countries on every continent, died under different circumstances but with one common denominator: they were killed “in odium fidei”, “in odium Ecclesiae” or due to suffering inflicted either in prison or in concentration camps.
*
vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01031997_p-58_en.html

This criteria does present something of a problem, however, since whether someone is a martyr rests with the intention of the person who kills them.

In any event, there really is not much question that the young man who killed the Abbé Hammel acted in odium fidei and in odium Ecclesiae given his actions before, during, and after.

As Babochka said, a different definition prevails with the Churches that are not the Western Church…they have a broader definition of a death that is like unto Christ’s rather than specific to the intention of the person who kills.

In any event, I do not think this is something being declared in the moment by emotional fiat…or rather if it is, that is happening at the level of those who are uninformed on the issue. Those who are informed – the hierarchy and theologians – are reaching conclusion that is not based on emotion but on their knowledge:

In his homily at a Mass for the repose of the soul of Fr Jacques Hamel, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney,* a theologian and member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the priest “died in odium fidei, that is in hatred of the faith”.***
catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/07/27/fr-hamel-was-martyred-in-odium-fidei-says-archbishop-fisher/

The decision ultimately rests with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and then with the Holy Father.
 
Still no answer re the inclusion of the Holy Innocents in the Martyrology… which widens the definition…
 
Rosebud77 said:
Still no answer re the inclusion of the Holy Innocents in the Martyrology… which widens the definition…
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It does not widen the definition.

Modern Catholic Dictionary:

HOLY INNOCENTS. Martyred boys under two years of age, whom King Herod ordered to be massacred. It was an attempt by Herod to kill the Babe of Bethlehem, who he feared would usurp his kingship (Matthew 2:16-18). Legends carry the numbers slain in the thousands, but it is now conceded to have been less than a hundred. The Western Church keeps their feast day on December 28. In Bethlehem it is celebrated with great solemnity.
 
Some of us may be asking silly questions but still it’s a very interesting, timely and informative topic. I’m glad to be able to learn more about it… Thanks for all who respond… 🙂
 
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