Commission New Martyrs

THE HEROIC WITNESSES OF THE "BRIEF CENTURY"

Marco Gnavi

The "martyrs" of the 20th century, witnesses of faith who gave their blood even in recent times, are possibly for contemporary man and woman, the most authentic "exegetics" of the theology of the Beatitudes. Indeed their life and their death provide the reason for the meaningful significance of the evangelical message; they indicate how it is possible to cross the different seasons of history, guided by the aspiration of full conformity with Christ.

Equipped with this similitude, they expressed the strength of Christian life in a decisive manner, through gentleness, mercy, hunger and thirst for justice, the purity of heart, in a century defined "brief" due to the acceleration it underwent - which lived through the abhorrence of two world conflicts, the shoah, as well as the Armenian and Cambodian genocide to reach the more recent ones in the Balkans or in Rwanda… If the twentieth century was shaken by jolts and fractures, the history of the Church and of the Churches often shared these, revealing however the hidden energy of its sons. In the face of the number of victims, pain, they have another inheritance to deliver. At the dramatic cross-roads of this century it is possible to visualise the testimony, at times humble and hidden, other times more noticeable, of lay people, religious, bishops, who opposed the language of death with the language of life, the logic of conflicts with the strength of reconciliation, prevarication with compassion. Through these the victory of so many languages of death and annihilation become intelligible to the contemporary world, even in those situations - for example concentration camps - where good appears to have been overcome forever. It is the victory of a love for Christ, for the Church and for man, who not only was not "killed" on the cross, but revealed himself. Countless witnesses speak to the generations of today to say how it is possible to conform in concrete thoughts, feelings and attitudes of life, to Christ, even when mediatic and hedonist culture, fear and insecurity, appear to reiterate to everyone the ancient sad suggestion to "save yourself". The life of modern "martyrs" is often the eloquent expression of humanities modelled on the Gospel, generous, which have become sensitive to the wounds of others, capable of receiving, desirous of promoting peace, strong in forgiveness, efficient in communicating the wealth of faith. The "heroic" degree of the exercise of Christian virtues, does not move them away from our daily experience: indeed the "beatitude" implants itself in weakness and fragility and transfigures them.

Looking through the thousands of biographical reports which regularly reach the Commission, testimonies emerge which have not lost light due to their "humility". Rather, their greatness is in the choice of love and faith. So going through their stories in Africa, one retraces the genesis of a Christian presence which did not withdraw, for faith to the commandment of love for the local populations and to the announcement, from the risk of life: from the dawn of the 20th century in the then Taganyika - when along with Bishop Cassian Spiss various religious were killed by the "maji-maji" in the mission of Nyangao - to reach the religious persecution carried out by the "simba" led by Gaston Soumialot in the eastern part of Congo in 1964. Even the choice of staying, providing assistance, not abandoning is written in the life and death of the religious, in the more recent context of civil wars which took place in countries such as Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, between the 80's and 90's. From the horrifying scenario of the dynamics of genocide in the Great Lakes region, courageous choices emerge on behalf of pastors, lovers of reconciliation aside from ethnic origins, such as Bishop Ruhuha…

Analogous paths of love for the Gospel and for the Church lead to Latin America. In Mexico during the 20's when President Calles violently attacked the Catholic Church, numerous names which are crowned by blessed Father Michael Pro Juarez S.J. or lead to El Salvador, where the witness of Monsignor Romero, a tenacious pastor of his Church, who died celebrating the sacrifice of Christ on the altar, produced among the faithful and clergy evangelical courage and predilection for the weakest. Or also in Peru in 1926, among the Huarayos Indians, when some missionaries lost their lives as they attempted to reconcile warring factions, or in 1997, the year in which 36-year-old Daniele Favali, the last of a long theory of missionaries, sealed with blood his love for the Church and the poor. Not infrequently, limpid figures of Christ emerge from the depth of war events, who do not hold back from the exercise of charity, despite the sides and regardless of borders: in the same way, for example, in Asia, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and China. Numerous priests found themselves, as wrote Father Cesare Mencattini in the last letter to his family before he was killed, «friends of everyone, among so many enemies». The hospitality offered by religious homes or parishes to war refugees now in Hong Kong, or to the Philippine or Chinese populations in regimes of occupation, was sufficient to motivate the killing of religious. At the same time efforts elsewhere made to deactivate in a Christian manner the roots of ethnic conflicts - for example India or Sri Lanka - are testimony of the will to materialise the paradoxical love for enemies, which in the Gospel of Matthew, sums up the proclamation of the Beatitudes.

The history of Europe also offers, through the "martyrs" of this century, the lights and references to find the paths of good, in contexts of terrible anguish and difficulty. Together with Gapp, Neururer, Edith Stein, Brandsma, a cloud of less known witnesses breaks the dark of the tragic night of the Second World War, offering themselves to save the life of hundreds of Jews and to defend the print of God in man. In Massimiliano Kolbe, John Paul II stigmatised the «victory obtained over the entire system of contempt and hatred towards man and of everything which is divine in man». The "martyr of love", as Paul VI defined him, traces a path along which it is possible to encounter other Christians assimilated to the passion of Christ.

The liturgical cult of the Blesses and the Holy Martyrs of this century stand next to the vast memory of those, who although less known invaded the space of evil proclaiming the joy of the Beatitudes. This memory, appears necessary to take on the dimensions of the constant and loving presence of the Church even where, more than in other times and places, creation «moans in the labour of giving birth». Accompanied by so many Christians who lived and died for Christ, we make our way towards the Third Millennium of the Christian era, with its burden of pain, but also with the strength and hope which emanates from them…