We hear a lot about martyrs and martyrdom these days, yet normally from the perspective of Islam and often in the context of Islamic terrorism. Yet it is often forgotten that martyrdom is a Catholic belief that Muslims appropriated and then redefined.
It’s important to understand that Islam developed approximately 700 years after the establishment of the Catholic Church. Muhammad was certainly aware of Catholic, as well as Jewish religious practices and ideas, and the Catholic historian and apologist Hilaire Belloc even goes as far as suggesting that Islam is in fact a Christian heresy.
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The Muslim understanding of martyrdom, although certainly complex with a deep theology attached to it, describes men and women who die in conflict ‘witnessing to the truth’ of Islam to non-believers. And the reward for this valor is understood to be instant entrance into heaven.
This notion of martyrdom can be applied to the brave Afghans who died fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, as well as to Hamas suicide bombers who blow themselves up in Israeli cafes. This is not to suggest that all Muslims condone suicide bombings, but to explain the broad use of the martyrdom label in the Muslim world. What is also significant is that martyrdom is theologically tied to the concept of Jihad.
From a Catholic point-of-view, suicide and martyrdom are contradictory; the Catholic Church considers suicide to be a grave sin. One is not free to take one’s life under any circumstance. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes:
2281 “Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self.”
Martyrdom in the Catholic tradition describes those men and women who were killed precisely because they were Christian. Although martyrdom is much more likely during times of revolution and social chaos, the Christian martyr need not be a soldier nor engaged in any kind of evangelism.
In some cases the martyr may have been told to denounce his faith or Jesus Christ, or to defame a sacred icon like an image of the Blessed Virgin or a Crucifix.
A person who refuses to give up his faith in Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, or refuses to engage in practices that are contrary to God’s laws – and is murdered as a result – is a martyr in the eyes of the Catholic faith. The Church teaches that these men and women will enter heaven directly without having to spend any purification time in purgatory.
The Catechism states:
2473 “Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude.”
The Catholic Catechism continues:
2474 “The Church has painstakingly collected the records of those who persevered to the end in witnessing to their faith. These are the acts of the Martyrs. They form the archives of truth written in letters of blood.”
