They are approximately 1700 the martyrs and witnesses of the 21st century faith Recognized by the Commission established in 2023 by Pope Francis at the Dicastery of the causes of the saints.
They will be remembered in the ecumenical celebration chaired in the papal basilica of San Paolo outside the walls from Leo XIV Sunday 14 Septemberfeast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross.
304 martyrs from the Americas, 43 the European ones killed in the Old Continent and another 110 fallen during the missions in the world, 277 affected in the Middle East and in the Maghreb, 357 witnesses of faith in Asia and Oceania and 643 in Africa, the land, the latter, “where Christians die more”, he explained Andrea Riccardifounder of the Community of Sant’Egidio and Vice President of the Commission of New Martyrs – Witnesses of the faith composed of eleven members during the press conference on 8 September in the Vatican press room.
The stories studied were reported by any latitude, From different churches and Christian confessions, and from the diocese, episcopal conferences, religious institutes and other ecclesial realities. They are lives that testify to the religious persecution, the violence of criminal organizations, the exploitation of natural resources, terrorist attacks, ethnic conflicts and other causes for which Christians are still killed.
“Unfortunately, Christians continue to die – Riccardi continued – and continue to die because witnesses of the Gospel, because they are passionate about God, brothers and sisters, because they are authentic servants of man, because they are free communicators of faith. Often the Christian with his own presence of an honest person, respectful of the law dedicated to the common good, annoyances to those who want to carry on criminal designs ».
And their memory will be remembered in the only ecumenical celebration in Rome throughout the jubilee year which will take place in the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross, said the Archbishop Fabio Fabene, Secretary of the Dicastery of the causes of the Saints and President of the Commission.
There will be 24 delegates of the Christian churches and great communions present at the liturgy of the word. “The vitality of baptism unites us all,” said Fabene, “in Christians who have given life the ecumenism of the blood is implemented as St. John Paul II loved to define him. Just in the martyrdom the Church is already united ».
In turn Pope Leone «hopes that the blood of these martyrs will be seed of peace and reconciliation, fraternity and love, as he wrote on the occasion of the recent terrorist attack in Congo».
“The Liturgy’s fil rouge is given by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, written in the flesh of the churches of these children who have lost their lives by defending in love for the Gospel, for the poorest, hope”, highlighted Monsignor Marco GnavI, Secretary of the Commission.
The celebration will also have readings taken from chapter 3 of the Book of Sapienza, the Psalm 120, and a passage of the letter of St. Paul the apostle to Timoteo. After the pontiff’s homily, the liturgy will proceed with the memory of the martyrs witnesses of the faith, in which, after the proclamation of any bliss, 2 intentions of prayer will follow and some words to remember the stories of some witnesses such as Sister Leonella gushed, killed in Somalia in 2006, or a group of evangelical Christians killed by terrorists in 2019 in Burkina Faso.
In the press conference it was also underlined how the study work and in -depth study carried out by Commission is located in the traces of the organ created by John Paul II on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000 To analyze and collect the stories of the witnesses of the Faith of the 20th century, which were then exhibited in the memorial for the new martyrs of the twentieth century in the church of San Bartolomeo on the Tiber island. Pope Wojtyla had also celebrated an ecumenical commemoration in memory of these martyrs on May 7, 2000 at the Colosseum.
The members of the Commission also insisted on the importance of these testimonies of life in the Holy Year dedicated to hope. “These brothers and sisters,” said Archbishop Fabene, “have placed the anchor of hope not in the reality of the world but in the heart of God, they hoped for God and their reward is full of immortality”. Monsignor Gnavi added that “The hope was the reason for their life before their death “, because they brought it” in contexts of ethnic conflict, of abuse, of humiliation of the poor and where the “evil with a capital M was present».
“Christian hope is not a state of mind or optimism”, Finally said Riccardi, “but the Christian hope matures in the memory of God’s loyalty and matures in the memory of women and men who believed to a God who was also faithful to them in adverse circumstances”.
