Age of Martyrdom

GETTING USED TO THE BLOOD ... GETTING USED TO HEAVEN

“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13).
“The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
“For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).

The 20th century alone surpassed the total number of martyrs from the previous nineteen centuries all combined. The 21st century looks like even surpassing the 20th century for its number of martyrs. For most people, martyrdom is a very unpleasant subject. Yet for Heaven, martyrdom is one of the most talked about and most liked subjects―because martyrdom, painful though it may be, is a manifestation of the highest form of love we have for God, Christ, and our Faith. The more we talk about unpleasant things, the more we get used to them and the less painful they become to our imagination. In this month of the Precious Blood of Jesus, let us be afraid to look at the Honor Roll of the Precious Blood―namely, the martyrs who gave their blood in imitation of Our Lord, Who gave His Precious Blood for our Redemption.

Article 1
Neo-Paganism Ushers In An Age of Martyrdom

Modern-Day Paganism
The phrase, sanguis martyrum est semen Christianorum― “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians” ―was not a pious sentiment. It was a literal fact of history. The more blood was shed by Christians in dying for their Faith, the more Christianity expanded throughout the pagan world.

Paganism is as old as human history. In one sentence, paganism is a culture of untruth and a culture of death. Error and human sacrifice played a major part in the life of many pagans. We Christians too have our ‘human sacrifice’—we call it martyrdom. However, it is not something we do to ourselves, it is something we suffer as coming from the hands of pagans and other enemies of the Church.

Over the two thousand years since Calvary, Christianity has had to constantly contend with pagan ideas, pagan laws; in a word―with a pagan culture that hated Christianity for the same reason that it crucified the Incarnate Truth, Who became man to teach the world how to serve God here on Earth, in order to possess Him in a blessed eternity.

There are differences, however, between a paganism that has never been Christianized, and a once-Christian society that has become paganized.

This state of neo-paganism or modern paganism, is the condition in which faithful and believing Catholics find themselves surrounded by, in this third millennium. In a country like America―whose Supreme Court, in the early years of this century, called a Christian nation―they find themselves surrounded by a paganism that is literally directed by the prince of this world. It is a paganism whose father is the evil spirit, whom Christ identified as the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. “Jesus therefore said to them: ‘You do the works of your father! If God were your Father, you would indeed love Me! For from God I proceeded, and came―for I came not of Myself, but He sent Me! Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies! But if I say the truth, you believe Me not!’” (John 8:41-45).

Death & Lies
There are two effects of this modern paganism which no one can rationally deny. It is first of all a culture of death, and secondly it is a society penetrated with the untruth. Politics lives a lie; the Protestant religions preach a lie; the Atheists believe a lie; the world lives a lie.

Can anyone doubt that our society is a culture of death? The lowest statistic for the number of abortions throughout the world is sixty-five million. One once-civilized nation after another has legalized the abortion of, not only the unborn, but of the newly born. Infanticide is now part of accepted American practice. So-called euthanasia and assisted suicide are accepted as part of modern life.

Unreal World
On the side of truth, even Protestants (in error themselves) see how bad things are. Marshall McLuhan, the renowned Canadian Protestant philosopher of social psychology and communication theory, wrote: “The modern media are engaged in Luciferian conspiracy against the truth.”

Basically, this is what an even more reliable source, Our Lady of La Salette, also said: "Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell; several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls. Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be independent and be superior to people of same identity, they will abolish civil rights as well as ecclesiastical, all order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family."

Millions of words are published every day and heard over the internet, radio and television. Very consciously and deliberately, much of this written and spoken communication is not true. The media broadcasts a lie and the world lives that lie.

Our Lord called the devil the "father of lies" and this father of lies in the prince of the world. It is estimated that ninety percent of the books borrowed from American libraries are fiction. Whole nations are living in a dream world created by the media, and the dreams are scientifically calculated to keep the human mind from contact with reality.

We define “truth” as conformity of the mind with objective reality. On these terms, must we not say that the evil spirit is demonically successful in deceiving whole nations by filling their minds with lies?

The Need for Martyrs
Given the widespread culture of death and plague of untruth in our day, is it any wonder that the followers of Christ must pay dearly for their loyalty to the Master, who identified Himself as the Life and the Truth?

You do not remain faithful to the Savior without paying for it. This has been the story of Christianity since the first Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified by His enemies. Why did they crucify Him? Because He taught that we were made for a life that will never end, and because He would not compromise on the Truth which He had received from His Father.

This has been the verdict of Christian history ever since, and will remain the same until the end of time. Those who want to remain loyal to Jesus Christ must expect to suffer for their witness to Incarnate Life and Truth. Another name for this suffering witness is martyrdom.

What is Martyrdom?
The best description of martyrdom was given by Christ Himself, just before He ascended into Heaven. He said to them: “You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Here we have capsulized in one sentence the motivating power of martyrdom, its nature, and its apostolic purpose.

Towards the end of His life on Earth, Jesus described in quite striking terms what “witnessing” to Him could entail: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name's sake. The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10:21-22; 24:9). The defining factor is “for My Name’s sake”! We live for Christ’s sake; we suffer for Christ’s sake; we die or are put to death for Christ’s sake.

Martyrs For Christ
The source of strength to suffer for Christ comes finally from the Holy Spirit, who is said to give power. In the language of the New Testament, this power is the same kind of power by which miracles can be worked. The nature of martyrdom is to witness, except that when Christ spoke to the disciples He did not say “You shall be My witnesses,” but, “You shall be My martyrs,” which tells us exactly what we want to know.

The essence of being a martyr is to be a witness. And we know what a witness does. He gives testimony publicly that something he saw or heard is true. He has experience of a fact or an event, and as a witness he declares that what he says or signs his name to is so. He gives evidence to others that what he testifies to should be believed. Why? Because he personally knows.

We are liable to miss the preceding adjective “my” in the clause “You shall by My martyrs.” This prefix is crucial. Those who are martyrs, are witnesses to Christ. They testify, if need be with their blood, that what they believe is true because they have known Christ.

The implication is that in order to be a witness, even to martyrdom, one must have experienced Christ, in a way comparable to what Peter told the early Christians: “Whom having not seen, you love: in Whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe: and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified; receiving the end of your Faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).

Believe Strongly, Die Bravely
So it was in the apostolic age, and so it is in ours. In order to witness to Christ we must believe in Him so strongly that we are filled with His joy. This joy is, of course, as Peter explained, not devoid of pain. But it is genuine and unmistakable. It is also profoundly communicable. In fact, one of the paradoxes of martyrdom is the positive happiness that a strongly committed follower of Christ has in suffering for Christ.

This is brought out dramatically by St. Luke in describing the second summons of the Apostles before the Sanhedrin, after they had been warned not to preach about the Savior. The Apostles were flogged and warned again not to speak in the name of Jesus. As they left the jail where they had been scourged, they were glad to have had the honor of suffering humiliation for the sake of the name of Christ:

“And calling in the Apostles, after they had scourged them, they charged them that they should not speak at all in the name of Jesus; and they dismissed them. And they indeed went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:40-41).

They would all, eventually, lay down their lives for Christ—even St. John in a certain sense, for had he not been miraculously preserved by God, he would have been martyred in the cauldron of boiling oil where they had placed him.

If They Hated Me, They Will Hate You
“If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you” (John 15:18). Today, the world has, for the most part, rejected Christ. It is now but a small step from rejecting and eliminating those who profess to follow Christ. We are in the age of the “Minor Apostasy”. Many Catholics, when threatened, will abandon their Faith. We need to pray to the Queen of Martyrs and the Apostle martyrs for the strength to witness for Christ in that crucial moment. “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Article 2
Civilized Martyrdom of the Modern Era

Modern Day Martyrdom
Our Lady has spoken of the martyrdoms of our age on several occasions. “The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs” (Our Lady of Good Success).

Martyrdom of Persecution
Not all the faithful who suffer for Christ also die for Christ. Opposition to the Christian Faith and way of life does not always end in violent death for the persecuted victims. Consequently, it is well to distinguish between what may be called martyrdom of blood and martyrdom of opposition, which is bloodless indeed, but no less―and sometimes more―painful to endure.

Not all the victims of persecution die at the hands of a godless government. Millions more are ostensibly free to walk the streets and live in a home. Yet they are, in effect, deprived of every human liberty to practice their religion and to serve Christ according to their Faith. If they teach their children catechism, the parents are prevented from enjoying such privileges as decent living quarters, or having any kind of skilled job. If they are seen attending church, they are first warned, then threatened, and finally penalized―even to the loss of their possessions.

So the sorry tale goes on, and has been going on for years, in spite of the conspiracy of silence in our American press.

‘Civilized’ Persecution
But that is not the whole picture. We need to shake ourselves into awareness that our country is going through persecution. It is no less real for being subtle, and no less painful for being perpetrated in the name of democracy.

What do we mean? We mean that any priest or religious, any married or single person in America, who wishes to sincerely and fully live up to his Catholic commitment, finds countless obstacles in his way and experiences innumerable difficulties that accumulatively demand heroic fortitude to overcome and withstand.

Christ’s Beatitudes versus Modern Attitudes
All we have to do is place the eight beatitudes in one column and the eight corresponding attitudes of our culture in another column, and compare the two.

► Where Christ advocates poverty, the world despises the poor and canonizes the rich.

► Where Christ praises gentleness, the world belittles meekness and extols those who succeed by crushing anyone who stands in their way.

► Where Christ encourages mourning and sorrow for sin, the world revels in pleasure and the noise of empty laughter.

► Where Christ promises joy only to those who seek justice and holiness, the world offers satisfaction in the enjoyment of sin.

► Where Christ bids us forgive and show mercy to those who have offended us, the world seeks vengeance and its law courts are filled with demands for retribution.

► Where Christ blesses those who are pure of heart, the world scoffs at chastity and makes a god of sex.

► Where Christ tells the peaceful that they shall be rewarded, the world teaches just the opposite in constant rebellion and violence and massive preparation for war.

► And where Christ teaches the incredible doctrine of accepting persecution with patience and resignation to God's will, the world dreads nothing more than criticism and rejection; and human respect which means acceptance by society, is the moral norm.

The Age of Martyrdom is Today
On the bloody side, the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, has had more Christians who were martyred for Christ than in all the centuries from Calvary to nineteen hundred included. Communism has played a major part in this—where, behind the old ‘Iron Curtain’, millions were slaughtered for their Faith. To this day, innumerable Catholics are dying for their Faith at the hands of Muslims, who are told by the Koran to either convert Christians from their idolatry of adoring the man Jesus as though he were God, or put them to death.

But our focus here is on our own country. Call it an “unbloody martyrdom”. But have no doubt that to live an authentic Catholic life in America today is to live a martyr's life—or at least to enter the beginning of a prolonged martyrdom, where the ‘civilized’ torture—and at times not so civilized torture—will get progressively worse from here on in.

Only heroic bishops and heroic priests, heroic religious, heroic fathers and mothers, heroic faithful, will survive the massive persecution of the Catholic Church in our country today. We call ourselves the Land of Liberty. But the only liberty that is given freedom is the liberty to do your own will. Pro-choice is not just a clever phrase. It is the hallmark of a culture in which millions have chosen to do what they want and make life humanly impossible for those who choose to do what God wants.

Martyrdom of Witness
We still have one more type of martyrdom to reflect on, and it is, in a way, the most pervasive of all because no follower of Christ can escape it. This is the martyrdom of witness.

What do we mean by martyrdom of witness and how does it differ from the other two? It differs from them in that, even in the absence of active opposition―the imitation of Christ must always face passive opposition. From whom? From those who lack a clear vision of the Savior or who, having had it, lost their former commitment to Christ. All that we have seen about the martyrdom by violence applies here too, but the method of opposition is different.

Here the firm believer in the Church's teaching authority; the devoted servant of the perennial teaching of the Church; the convinced pastor who insists on sound traditional doctrine to his flock; the dedicated religious who want to remain faithful to their vows of authentic poverty, honest chastity, and sincere obedience; the firm parents who are concerned about the religious and moral training of their children and are willing to sacrifice generously to build and care for a Christian family―natural or adopted―such persons will not be spared also active criticism and open opposition. But they must especially be ready to live in an atmosphere of coldness to their deepest beliefs.

Sometimes they would almost wish the opposition were more overt and even persecution would be a welcome change. It is the studied indifference of people whom they know and love, of persons in their own natural or religious family, of men and women whose intelligence they respect and whose respect they cherish.

This kind of apathy can be demoralizing and, unless it finds relief, can be devastating.

To continue living a Christ-like life, in this kind of environment, is to practice the martyrdom of witness. Why witness? Because it means giving testimony to our deep religious convictions although all around us others are giving their own example to the contrary.

It means giving witness twice over: once on our own behalf as the outward expression of what we internally believe and once again on behalf of others whose conduct is not only different from ours but contradicts it.

David versus Goliath; Minority versus Majority
Wherein lies the martyrdom? It lies in the deprivation of good example to us on the part of our contemporaries, and in the practice of Christian virtue in loneliness, because those who witness what we do are in the majority—numerically or psychologically—and we know they are being challenged and embarrassed by the testimony. We witness to them, indeed, but they are not pleased to witness who we are, what we stand for, what we say, or what we do.

Notwithstanding all of this, however, it behooves us to look at the positive side of the picture. We must remind ourselves that this witness of ours is not so sterile as we may suppose; quite the contrary. Although we may be, or at least feel, often quite alone, we are not alone at all. Not infrequently our severest critics can become our strongest admirers. In any case, witness that we give by living up to the conviction of our Faith is surely demanding on human nature. That is why we call it martyrdom. But it is a witness to the truth and God's grace is always active in the hearts of everyone whose path we cross.

Power of Martyrdom
If we would know the power of this martyrdom of witness we have only to read the annals of the early Church. The handful of believers, whom St. Peter baptized on Pentecost Sunday, were as a drop in the immense culture surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Yet see what happened. This small group of convinced faithful were able, in less than three hundred years, to turn the tide of paganism in the Roman Empire. For a long time they were deprived even of the basic civil rights accorded other citizens. They were often hunted like animals, and the catacombs tell us that they had to hide when celebrating the Liturgy and hide the tombs of their revered dead.

But their patience and meekness finally prevailed. Yes, but only because it was supported by unbounded courage, born not of their own strength, but of the power that Christ promised to give all His followers that shall witness to His name everywhere. This promise is just as true today. All that we need is to trust in the Spirit Whom we possess, and never grow weary in giving testimony to the grace we received.

This is what Christ was talking about when He told us not to hide our virtues but to allow them to be publicly seen, like a candle on a candlestick or a city on a mountaintop. We should not be afraid that by such evidence of our good works we shall be protected from vainglory by the cost in humiliation that witnessing to a holy life inevitably brings. There will have to be enough death to self and enough ignoring of human respect to keep us from getting proud in our well-doing. God will see to that. On our part, we must be willing to pay the price of suffering in doing good, which is another name for being a living martyr, that is, a courageous witness to the life of Christ in the world today.

Article 3
Coming of Age
The Precious Blood & The Age of Martyrdom

Blood and Martyrs
We were redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, and we are now living in the Age of Martyrs. Or should we say, we are potentially redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, and we are now potential martyrs in the Age of Martyrs. In this month of the Precious Blood and in this Age of Martyrdom, let us see the connection between the Precious Blood and martyrdom.

The Precious Blood
The words “Precious Blood” are of divine origin, coming from Holy Scripture, inspired by the Holy Ghost, who inspired St. Peter to write: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: but with the Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

What is St. Peter telling us? He is saying that our redemption was accomplished by the shedding of the Blood of the Son of God, Who became man and died for our salvation on the cross. Having sinned and thereby having lost God’s friendship, the human race could not have been saved unless God had become man in order to die on the cross for our salvation.

For sin is not just measured by the gravity of the action, but it is also measured by the dignity of the one who is sinned against. Since God is an infinite Being, any sin committed against Him is an infinite offense. Yet we are mere finite creatures—and a finite creature cannot pay an infinite offense. Only an infinite being can pay an infinite. In simpler terms, it is like a human being (with an average life-span of eighty years or so) taking out a 1,000 year mortgage. No chance! No way!

Spiritual ‘Financial’ Aid
In His pity and compassion, moved by love, God became Incarnate in order to have a human nature, so that as a human being He could pay the human debt for sin; and as an infinite being, He could pay an infinite debt. There is nothing more basic to our Faith than this mystery of divine love.

This means that He had a human body and a human soul. It means that He could suffer in His body, indeed could die a bodily death, not because He had to but because He wanted to out of love for us. He could have paid the debt in a less gruesome way, but He chose to die the tortuous death of the Cross (and all that preceded it) in order to try and show us:

(1) the gravity and expense of sin, and
(2) the extent of His love for us.

For He Himself said: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), yet Our Lord went one step further, He laid down His life for His enemies also.

The Only Way He Knew―The Only Way He Could
The only way that Christ could die was by being put to death by His enemies, who crucified Him on Calvary. “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). Yet Christ had not sinned, so He would not die naturally as a consequence of sin—just as Adam and Eve would not have died had they not sinned. Being the sinless Lamb of God, He could not die of any sickness or disease which, for us, is a punitive consequence of Original Sin.

Christ, therefore, in order to die, had to be killed and He chose to killed in a way that would have Him bleed to death. He had to shed His Blood in order for His soul to leave His body, which thus died on the Cross so that we might be redeemed.

Jesus not only had a human body that could bleed to death, He also had a human will that could choose this death on the first Good Friday. That, in fact, is the essence of sacrifice. To sacrifice means to voluntarily surrender something precious to God. Christ sacrificed the precious possession of His human life so that He might restore the divine life of grace to the human race.

Hallmark of Catholic Spirituality
Over the centuries, devotion to the Precious Blood has been one of the hallmarks of authentic Catholic spirituality. In the Litany of the Precious Blood, we pray:

“Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in the agony, save us”
“Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the scourging, save us”
“Blood of Christ, poured out on the cross, save us”
“Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, save us”
“Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness, save us”

So the Litany goes on with one repeated theme. God became man to shed His Blood on Calvary so that we might reach the Heaven for which we were made. All of this is part of our Faith. As Christ told us, “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). This could be rephrased as, “Without the shedding of My Precious Blood, you could not even hope for Heaven.”

The Age of Martyrdom
The Precious Blood of Christ and our martyrdom (whether bloody or unbloody) belong together. We believe that, by His death on the cross, Christ merited all the graces we need to reach Heaven. He won all the graces necessary for our salvation. He gained all the graces that the human race needs to reach its eternal destiny.

But we also believe that what Christ did, by dying for us on the cross, requires that we die on our cross, by cooperating with the graces that Jesus won for our redemption. He could not have been more clear. He told us:

St. Luke reports it: “And he said to ALL: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23).

St. Matthew reports it: “Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” (Matthew 16:24).

St. Mark reports it: “And calling the multitude together with His disciples, He said to them: ‘If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’”

St. Matthew then adds the clause of Jesus that rules out any kind of spectatorship from the bleachers: “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).

Just to drive the point home, both St. Matthew and St. Luke report Our Lord saying elsewhere: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth” (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23). To be “with” Our Lord, also means to be “with the Cross.”

St. Paul approaches it from another perspective, saying: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:18-19). “For as many as desire to please in the flesh, only that they may not suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ” (Galatians 6:12).

Love For Love―Blood For Blood
We must cooperate with Christ’s grace if we wish to join Him in eternity. He was crucified by shedding His Blood. We must be crucified by shedding our blood in witness to our love.

All of this is elementary Christian teaching. The Precious Blood of Christ does, indeed, provide us with the light and strength we need to reach Heaven. But we have to do our part, otherwise Christ’s passion and death on Calvary would have been in vain.

Our Age Is ‘THE’ Age
Our Lord said that without Him, we could do nothing (John 15:5). Without the Precious Blood of Christ we can never be martyrs in this Age of Martyrdom. What are we saying? We are saying that the present time (20th and 21st centuries) is the Age of Martyrs par excellence. Ours is THE Age of Martyrs.

We are inclined to think that martyrs are those ancient men and women in the first centuries of the Church whom we commemorate by name in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when we say, “We honor the apostles and martyrs,” and then name after the apostles, “Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian.”

Unless we pinch ourselves and make ourselves wake up to reality, we imagine martyrs to be commonly associated with the distant history of the Church, and certainly not with our own times. What a miscalculation!

Just the Facts, Ma’am! Just the Facts!
A conservative estimate places the total number of martyrs, who died for Christ up to the liberation edict of Constantine in 313 AD, at around 100,000. We call that period of ‘massive’ persecution—the Age of Martyrs. Yet, the number of Christians who have died for their faith since 1900 is several million. In the Sudan alone, during the 1950s, over two million Catholics were starved to death by the Muslims, because they refused to deny that Mary is the Mother of God since her Son is the Ibn Allah, the Son of God. There have been more Christian martyrs, since 1900, than in all of the preceding centuries from Calvary to 1900 put together.

The Greatest Proof
The Church considers martyrdom as an exceptional gift and as the fullest proof of love. By martyrdom a disciple is transformed into an image of his Master, by freely accepting death for the salvation of the world, as well as his conformity to Christ in the shedding of his blood. Although few persons, relatively speaking, are presented such an opportunity, nevertheless all must be prepared to confess Christ before men. “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33). They must be prepared to make this profession of Faith even in the midst of persecutions, which will never be lacking to the Church, in following the way of the cross.

Greatest Sufferings in the Last Days
However, just as the principal sufferings came to Christ towards the end of His life, so too will the principal sufferings come to the Mystical Body of Christ towards the end of time. Ominously, Sr. Lucia of Fatima says: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground” (Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, 1957).

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Our Lady speaks of tremendous persecutions, calamities, upheavals, catastrophes and chastisements for our times. “The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs” (Our Lady of Good Success) … “The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer” (Our Lady of Fatima).

The End and the Means to the End
When God gives anyone a task, He also gives them the means to be able to accomplish it. If God asks for martyrdom, He will give the grace to be able to go through with it. Yet, God will not give us that grace until we need it. It is good for our humility and spirituality to be not just a little scared, but very scared—it makes us turn to God when we see that we have not the courage for this; it makes us pray harder; it makes us realize the price of sin and salvation.

If martyrdom is the end of many, then Our Lady is means for all. “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you” (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917). “The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).

Already, centuries before, the Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion; for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.” And then she concluded by saying: “Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”

The Blood of Mary
A consoling thought is that the Precious Blood of Christ came from the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was what Our Lady furnished on her part at the moment of the Incarnation, as we read in The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Having conferred with herself and with the heavenly messenger Gabriel, about the grandeur of these high and divine mysteries, her purest soul was absorbed and elevated in admiration, reverence and highest intensity of divine love. By the intensity of these movements and supernal affections, her most pure heart, as it were by natural consequence, was contracted and compressed with such force, that it distilled three drops of her most pure blood, and these, finding their way to the natural place for the act of conception, were formed by the power of the divine and Holy Spirit, into the body of Christ our Lord.

"Thus the matter, from which the most holy humanity of the Word for our Redemption is composed, was furnished and administered by the most pure heart of Mary and through the sheer force of her true love. At the same moment, with a humility never sufficiently to be extolled, inclining slightly her head and joining her hands, she pronounced these words, which were the beginning of our salvation: ‘Be it done unto me according to thy word’ (Luke 1:31). At the pronouncing of this ‘fiat’― so sweet to the hearing of God and so fortunate for us―in one instant, four things happened. First, the most holy Body of Christ our Lord was formed from the three drops of blood furnished by the heart of most holy Mary” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).

Thus, in a sense, Our Lady gave her blood for Christ at the start of His life on Earth. She also mystically shed her blood in a bloodless martyrdom during the Passion of Death of Christ. She will also be there at our martyrdom—whether it be bloody or bloodless; quick or drawn-out. Let us remember, once again, her words as Our Lady of Good Success: “The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs.”

Queen of Martyrs, pray for us!

Article 4
Different Kinds of Martyrdom

And You Thought Martyrdom Was…
Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “the small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those, who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country, will be counted as martyrs.”

A Colorful Life!
The early Church looked at martyrdom in degrees and would bestow the title of “martyr” on those who sacrifice large elements of their lives, alongside those who sacrifice life itself. These degrees were mentioned by Pope Gregory I in Homilia in Evangelia, he wrote of three modes of martyrdom, designated by the colors, red, blue (or green), and white. A Christian was given the title of “red martyr” as it symbolized the shedding of blood due to either torture or violent death by religious persecution. The term “white martyrdom” was used by the Church Father and Doctor, St. Jerome, for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism. “Blue (or green) martyrdom” involves the denial of desires, as through fasting and penitent labors without necessarily implying a journey or complete withdrawal from life.

Early Irish Distinction
The three different types of martyrdom are found catagorized in the text of the 7th or 8th century Cambrai (Irish) Homily: “Now there are three kinds of martyrdom that are counted as a cross to us, namely, white, blue and red martyrdom. The white martyrdom for someone is when they part for the sake of God from everything that they love, although they may suffer fasting and hard work thereby. The blue martyrdom is when through fasting and hard work they control their desires or struggle in penance and repentance. The red martyrdom is when they endure a cross or destruction for Christ’s sake, as happened to the Apostles when they persecuted the wicked and taught the law of God. These three kinds of martyrdom take place in those people who repent well, who control their desires, and who shed their blood in fasting and labor for Christ’s sake” (Celtic Spirituality, ed. by O. Davis, T. O’Loughlin, Paulist Press, p.370).

Two or Three?
Other spiritual authors speak of only two kinds of martyrdom. There is the red martyrdom of shedding one’s blood physically; and there is the white martyrdom of suffering in witness to one’s Faith in Jesus Christ. St. Alphonsus Liguori quotes St. Cyprian’s comment: “What has encouraged the saints to lead a life, which, on account of their continual austerities, was an uninterrupted martyrdom?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, 21st Sunday After Pentecost).

Wet and Dry!
Another distinction, that is sometimes used, is also along these lines, and uses the terms “wet martyr” (a person who has shed blood, or been executed for the Faith) and “dry martyr” which is a person who had suffered every indignity and cruelty, but not to the point of shedding his or her blood, nor suffering execution and death.

Article 5
Martyrdom Today

The image from the summer of 2015 remains unerased: 21 men in bright orange jumpsuits kneeling on a lonely Mediterranean beach before a line of black-clad and masked Islamic State militants. Seconds later, the militants would draw their long knives and ritually behead each of the men—all of them Egyptian Christians were killed for being Christian. The 21 had been kidnapped by the extremist group while working in Libya, and the beheadings were captured on a video that was subsequently released on a pro-Islamic State website.

As shocking as the killings were, the motivation for them was not atypical. Throughout the world, in the early years of the 21st century, Christians have suffered persecution and martyrdom at a rate and intensity that recalls the worst periods of the ancient Roman Empire.

Though the numbers rarely show up on popular radar in the West, the International Society for Human Rights reported that Christians are the targets of 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today. “Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet,” writes John J. Allen in The Spectator.

“According to the Pew Forum,” writes Allen, author of the book “The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution,” between 2006 and 2010 “Christians faced some form of discrimination, either de jure or de facto, in a staggering total of 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in what the center calls a ‘situation of witness’ each year for the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons related to their faith.

“In effect, the world is witnessing the rise of an entire new generation of Christian martyrs. The carnage is occurring on such a vast scale that it represents not only the most dramatic Christian story of our time, but arguably the premier human rights challenge of this era as well.”

The modern-era anti-Christian bloodletting actually began in the 20th century, though incidents were, then as now, seldom generally acknowledged.

“The secular West has been looking the other way for a very long time,” writes Susan Brinkman in The Catholic Standard and Times. “Even the average church-going Christian is not likely to know that 45.5 million of the estimated 70 million Christians who have died for Christ did so in the last century. For this reason, scholars such as Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of ‘The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century’, refer to the past century as one of the darkest periods of martyrdom since the birth of Christianity.”

The persecutions in the 20th century “were largely the result of political ideologies—alternative religions really—that could not tolerate any competition from competing faiths,” says Royal. “Communism, Nazism and Fascism all piled up huge numbers of Christian dead. Because they think of religion as a political and not a spiritual force, of course they hate it when they see it.

“Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, the situation has changed. We’re developing our own anti-Christian ideologies in the West—persecution, but so far no real martyrs. Militant Islam seems to be doing the most, but tyrannical regimes in Africa exist that don’t like Christians who resist injustices… China does a fair job repressing Christians, who grow in numbers nonetheless, maybe because of the persecution. There are other fundamentalisms that have arisen in response to the bleak nature of the modern world: Hindu fundamentalism, for instance, has killed and tried to drive Christians away. It’s a nasty world.”

Not nasty enough, apparently, to generate any kind of consistent coverage in the West.

“Why are the dimensions of this global war so often overlooked?” Allen asks. “Aside from the root fact that the victims are largely non-white and poor, and thus not considered ‘newsmakers’ in the classic sense, and that they tend to live and die well off the radar screen of western attention, the global war also runs up against the outdated stereotype of Christianity as the oppressor rather than the oppressed.

“Say ‘religious persecution’ to most makers of cultured secular opinion, and they will think of the Crusades, the Inquisition, Bruno and Galileo, the Wars of Religion and the Salem witch trials. Today, however, we do not live on the pages of a Dan Brown potboiler, in which Christians are dispatching mad assassins to settle historical scores. Instead, they’re the ones fleeing assassins others have dispatched.”

Still, like the martyrs of old, modern Christians have largely remained steadfast in the face of threats.

“Most Christians don’t go out of their way to conflict with authorities and with other faiths,” says Royal. “But to be a Christian in the troubled parts of the world often means to have made a deliberate choice to remain faithful to something beyond your immediate surroundings. It’s amazing how many people are willing to risk everything, including their lives, to remain faithful. Those Coptic Christians who were beheaded by ISIS in Libya were amazing to the very end, but aren’t as rare in the world as most people think.”

“The persecution of the First Christian, Jesus, is a telling example for all of us,” says Royal. “The one thing we absolutely can’t do in the West is to be silent. I’ll never forget when I was writing my book on the 20th century martyrs, the cry of a Romanian bishop, perhaps the most heartfelt claim in all the literature I read. He said, ‘it’s not we in the Communist East who are the Church of Silence. We speak up and bear witness with our lives. It’s you in the West who have freedom of speech and action who do nothing, who are the Silent Church.’”

His cry finds a plaintive echo in the words of the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal: “Does anybody hear our cry? How many atrocities must we endure before somebody, somewhere, comes to our aid?”

Article 6
Ten Facts About Modern Day Christian Persecution

Have you ever wondered how often Christians in the different parts of the world suffer from persecution and religious violence? How they are constantly placed in a tight spot just because they believe in Christ? Approximately more than two hundred million Christians are facing high levels of persecution worldwide according to the latest report of Open Doors USA. The following are the facts that you should be aware of to get a mental picture of what our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ experience today:

1. Top 10 countries where it’s hardest to follow Christ:
1. North Korea
2. Afghanistan
3. Somalia
4. Libya
5. Pakistan
6. Eritrea
7. Sudan
8. Yemen
9. Iran
10. India

2. Top 10 countries where Christians face the most violence:
1. Pakistan
2. Nigeria
3. Egypt
4. Central African Republic
5. Burkina Faso
6. Colombia
7. Cameroon
8. India
9. Mali
10. Sri Lanka

3. Top 10 countries where the most Christians are martyred:
1. Nigeria: 1,350
2. Central African Republic: 924
3. Sri Lanka: 200
4. Democratic Republic of Congo: 152
5. South Sudan: 100
6. Burkina Faso: 50
7. Egypt: 23
8. Pakistan: 20
9. [name withheld]: 20
10. Colombia: 16

4. Top 10 countries where the most churches are attacked or closed:
1. China: 5,576
2. Angola: 2,000
3. Rwanda: 700
4. Myanmar: 204
5. Nigeria: 150
6. Ethiopia: 124
7. Burundi: 100
8. Mali: 100
9. Pakistan: 58
10. Burkina Faso: 50

5. Data with respect to Christian persecution in the top 50 countries where it’s hardest to follow Christ:
● 260 Million: In the top 50 World Watch List countries alone, 260 million Christians in the world experience high levels of persecution for their choice to follow Christ.
● 1 in 9: Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution.
● 6%: The rise in the number of Christians in the top 50 countries on the 2020 World Watch List (WWL) who experience high levels of persecution. (from the 2019 reporting period to 2020’s)
● 2,983 Christians killed for faith-related reasons in the top 50 WWL countries.
● 3,711 Christians detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned in the top 50 WWL countries.
● 9,488 churches or Christian buildings attacked in the top 50 WWL countries.
● 6 out of 7: In seven of the countries in the World Watch List’s top 10, the primary cause of persecution is Islamic oppression.
● 11 countries scoring in the “extreme” level for their persecution of Christians. Six years ago, North Korea was the only one.
● 19 Consecutive years North Korea has ranked No. 1 as the world’s most dangerous place for Christians.

6. Main reasons why Christians are targeted for following Jesus:
● The Authoritarian governments view Christianity as a threat to power.
● Suspicion of anything outside the majority cultural faith.
● Extremist groups want to destroy Christians out of hatred.
● Official and cultural domination of a single religion.

7. Persecution against women:
In the 2020 World Watch List reporting period, there were shocking details about the persecution experienced by Christian women. In many places, women experience “double persecution”—persecution for being a Christian and for being a woman. Even in the most restricted circumstances, gender-specific persecution is a key means of destroying the minority Christian community. This kind of persecution is difficult to assess because it’s complex, violent and hidden—in many cultures where women are specifically targeted, it is difficult, if not impossible, to report accurate numbers.

8. In the most populated countries, Christians live in a surveillance state:
In his opening letter for the 2020 World Watch List, Open Doors CEO David Curry spoke about visiting Beijing, China and being watched by cameras and possibly having his hotel room bugged.

“It’s what some Christians in China go through constantly,” he wrote, “the reality that the government keeps tabs on them, making sure they don’t get out of line. Making sure that Jesus doesn’t ever conflict with the wishes of the state.”

The report notes how both China and India are increasingly using facial recognition systems with wide networks of cameras to track Christians and make their lives more difficult.

9. Islamic oppression continues to impact millions of Christians:
In seven out of the top 10 World Watch List countries, the primary cause of persecution is Islamic oppression. This means, for millions of Christians—particularly those who grew up Muslim or were born into Muslim families—openly following Jesus can have painful consequences. Christians in these countries can be treated as second-class citizens, discriminated against for jobs or even violently attacked.

10. More laws added to control religion:
State authoritarianism is increasing in many parts of the world, supported by the availability of personal digital technology, which governments can increasingly track through facial recognition, electronic chips and so on. Places like Vietnam, Myanmar, China and North Korea all saw increases in stricter state control of religious rights.

Behind every number recorded, a human being suffered, or worse, shed blood for professing faith in Christ. Remember those people; let us fight and pray for them.

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.” (1 Peter 3:14).

Article 7
St. Maximilian Kolbe

During World War II, the Nazis persecuted Christians ostensibly because they were considered enemies of the state; their practices and Christian ethics ran counter to and were seen as threatening the National Socialist government. The Nazis arrested Christians for a variety of reasons, including for treason, befriending a Jew, speaking against the government and inciting people. The Nazis purposely sought not to make martyrs out of Christians but treated and even punished them as criminals. Hitler allegedly said that his countrymen could either be a German or a Christian―but not both. Thousands of Christians were rounded up, imprisoned and many sent to concentration camps. There, along with other prisoners, they were brutalized, often murdered or just disappeared. Christians sent to concentration camps included thousands of members of the clergy like Father Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941).

Early life
Raymund Kolbe was born on January 8th, 1894, in Zduńska Wola, in the Kingdom of Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He was the second son of weaver Julius Kolbe and midwife Maria Dąbrowska. His father was an ethnic German, and his mother was Polish. He had four brothers. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Pabianice.

Kolbe's life was strongly influenced in 1906, when he was 12, by a vision of the Virgin Mary. He later described this incident: “That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”

Franciscan Friar
In 1907 Kolbe and his elder brother Francis joined the Conventual Franciscans. They enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary in Lwow later that year. In 1910, Kolbe was allowed to enter the novitiate, where he chose a religious name Maximilian. He professed his first vows in 1911, and final vows in 1914, adopting the additional name of Maria (Mary).

First World War
Kolbe was sent to Rome in 1912, where he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 there. From 1915 he continued his studies at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure, where he earned a doctorate in theology in 1919 or 1922 (sources vary). He was active in the consecration and entrustment to Mary.

In the midst of these studies, World War I broke out. Maximilian's father, Julius Kolbe, joined Jozef Piłsudski's Polish Legions, fighting against the Russians for an independent Poland, still subjugated and still divided among Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Julius Kolbe was caught and hanged as a traitor by the Russians at the relatively young age of 43, a traumatic event for young Maximilian.

During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes Pius X and Benedict XV in Rome during an anniversary celebration by the Freemasons. According to Kolbe: “They placed the black standard of the ‘Giordano Brunisti’ under the windows of the Vatican. On this standard the archangel, Michael, was depicted lying under the feet of the triumphant Lucifer. At the same time, countless pamphlets were distributed to the people in which the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) was attacked shamefully.”

Soon afterward, on October 16th, 1917, Kolbe organized the Militia Immaculatae (Army of the Immaculate One), to work for conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. So serious was Kolbe about this goal that he added to the Miraculous Medal prayer: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. And for all those who do not have recourse to thee; especially the Freemasons and all those recommended to thee.”

Kolbe wanted the entire Franciscan Order consecrated to the Immaculate by an additional vow. The idea was well received, but faced the hurdles of approval by the hierarchy of the order and the lawyers, so it was never formally adopted during his life and was no longer pursued after his death.

Ordination
In 1918, Kolbe was ordained a priest. In July 1919, he returned to Poland, which was newly independent. He was active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. He was strongly opposed to leftist ― in particular, Communist― movements.

From 1919 to 1922, he taught at the Kraków Seminary. Around that time, as well as earlier in Rome, he suffered from tuberculosis (TB), which forced him to take a lengthy leave of absence from his teaching duties. In those pre-antibiotic times, TB was generally considered fatal, with rest and good nutrition the best treatment.

In January 1922, Kolbe founded the monthly periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculata), a devotional publication based on French Le Messager du Coeur de Jesus (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus). From 1922 to 1926, he operated a religious publishing press in Grodno. As his activities grew in scope, in 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanów, near Warsaw. It became a major religious publishing center. A junior seminary was opened there two years later.

Missionary work in Asia
Between 1930 and 1936, Kolbe undertook a series of missions to East Asia. He arrived first in Shanghai, China, but failed to gather a following there. Next he moved to Japan, where by 1931 he had founded a Franciscan monastery, Mugenzai no Sono, on the outskirts of Nagasaki.

Kolbe had started publishing a Japanese edition of the Knight of the Immaculata. The monastery he founded remains prominent in the Roman Catholic Church in Japan. Kolbe had the monastery built on a mountainside. According to Shinto beliefs, this was not the side best suited to be in harmony with nature. However, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the Franciscan monastery survived, unlike the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, the latter having been on the side of the mountain that took the main force of the blast.

In mid-1932, Kolbe left Japan for Malabar, India, where he founded another monastery, which has since closed.

Return to Poland
Meanwhile, in his absence the monastery at Niepokalanów began to publish a daily newspaper Mały Dziennik (the Small Diary), in alliance with the political group National Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo Radykalny). This publication reached a circulation of 137,000, and nearly double that, 225,000, on weekends. Kolbe returned to Poland in 1933 for a general chapter of the order in Kraków. Kolbe returned to Japan and remained there until called back to attend the Provincial Chapter in Poland in 1936. There he was appointed guardian of Niepokalanów, thus precluding his return to Japan. Two years later, in 1938, he started a radio station at Niepokalanów, Radio Niepokalanów. He held an amateur radio license, with the call sign SP3RN.

Second World War
After the outbreak of World War II, Kolbe was one of the few friars who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital. After the town was captured by the Germans, they arrested him on September 19th, 1939; he was later released on December 8th. He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry. Upon his release he continued work at his friary where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from German persecution in the Niepokalanów friary. Kolbe received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope. The monastery continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications.

On February 17th, 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German authorities. That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On May 28th, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.

Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beatings and lashings. Once he was smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates. At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out: “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. In the starvation bunker, where their only substance was their own urine, five of the men died within two weeks. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.

Death
The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection. To remove any evidence of what had taken place, the bodies of the prisoners were quickly cremated. The prisoner replaced by Father Kolbe lived to tell about the incident. Father Kolbe died on the Vigil of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, August 14th, 1941, aged 47. His remains were cremated on August 15th, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary. Due to Kolbe's efforts to promote consecration and entrustment to Mary, he is known as the Apostle of Consecration to Mary.

Article 8
St. Maria Goretti

St. Maria Goretti was born in 1890, one of six children from an impoverished farming family in Corinaldo, Italy. In the never-ending winter of 1897, the blustery Alpine cold whipped down along Italy’s eastern edge. Italy’s backbone, the Apennine Mountains, deflected all the warmth from the Mediterranean and the African Continent from the area where the Goretti family lived. Luigi Goretti, Assunta’s hard working farmer husband, was discouraged.

The pure mountain air, steep paths and craggy landscape were appealing. Even the beauty of the Adriatic Sea could be seen from the church tower in their little village of Corinaldo. But it was not enticing now. Enduring the long winters of heavy snows and bitter cold wind while gathering precious fuel was no way to live. Luigi was a man of action. God helps those who help themselves. He wanted more for his family than the meager existence the mountains provided. Assunta felt a knot of fear and panic at the thought of leaving her ancestral home. But Luigi, in his youthful travels as a soldier, had seen what lay beyond the mountains. There was the milder Mediterranean climate, fertile plains, and a chance for a man to make a living for his family, rather than the constant battle against nature.

In 1899 Maria Goretti’s father, Luigi Goretti, and her mother, Assunta, packed what little they had, along with their four children, Angelo, nine, Maria, six, Marino, four and new born Allesandro, and moved the family to Le Ferriere di Conca, 40 miles from Rome. Across the Apennines they traveled, two hundred miles in two weeks, due westward on steep, treacherous mountain paths until at last the Roman Campagna spread before them.

Into the city they headed, overwhelmed by the size, the multitudes of people and a strange, noisy life. They found comfort inside the city’s numerous churches, praying, lighting candles, imploring the saints for guidance that they would find fruit and not folly in their adventure.

By chance they learned of rich farm lands owned by Count Mazzoleni south west of the city near the coastal town of Nettuno. They were told to stop and inquire at Ferriere. The land could be rented reasonably, or perhaps worked on a profit-sharing basis. The family was eager to settle. The boys were becoming restless. Only Maria remained sweet and uncomplaining as the city pavement fell away to a landscape of vineyards, and fields of wheat and corn. But as they continued, the Mediterranean coastal plain was very different. The “fertile” farmland had first to be wrestled away from marshes and swamps. The air was hot and always heavy and damp from the sea.

It was mid-afternoon when they entered the village of Ferriere on the edge of the Pontine Marshes. Not a soul was on the street to greet them; no church, no shops. The heat of the day was intense, the children thirsty and tired after the day’s journey. Luigi swallowed his disappointment as he knocked on a door. Looking around him he felt unwelcome, as if all the sidewalks had been pulled up and locked away.

Finally after several attempts to arouse someone, Luigi heard the slow shuffling of feet. An elderly woman unbolted the door and directed him in the direction of the Count’s “estate”: the “old cheese factory” at the end of town.

The Goretti’s found the oblong two story building perched on a small rise surrounded by flat, swampy, treeless land. The outbuildings consisted of a shed, stable and hen house, abandoned, empty of all life. With minimal fuss and bother, the Goretti’s became sharecroppers for Count Mazzoleni. In exchange for farming work, the Goretti’s lived in the landowner’s abandoned factory on the property. Assunta quickly took over the cares of the house and made it home for her family.

Luigi began to work immediately to make a success of his endeavor. The farmland was poor, swampy, mosquito infected, and difficult to work. His first project was to drain the neglected land. All summer he continued with tireless effort and by fall had tilled enough land to plant eight acres of wheat and barley. But the summer of backbreaking work, the change in climate and the proximity of the malarial-infested Pontine had put Luigi in grave danger. At first, he ignored a slight chill and fever. With so much to be done how could he rest? There was work at the quarry to patch the roadway, hedges to trim, firewood to secure, buildings and roofs to repair, lofts to clean, and task after task after task. A troublesome cough followed him day and night, but he never stopped.

Harvest time came and Count Mazzoleni came to inspect the yield. He found Goretti’s grain half cut, limp in the fields. The Count angrily stormed into the house. Luigi lay ill, prostrate with fever. He could only admit that he could not bring in the harvest by himself. Without waiting for further explanation, the Count said he would send Giovanni Serenelli and his son to complete the work for a share of the crop. Thus they would have to share their residence with another poor family, the Serenelli’s, which consisted of Giovanni, a widower, and his son, Alessandro.

Luigi fought back bitter disappointment. Now he must share half his harvest and expect Assunta to care for two more people. How could he ask his lovely Assunta to do more? Already she was overburdened with his illness, the children, a new baby, and the cares of the farm. As Luigi and Assunta prayed together before retiring, Luigi knew he must tell Assunta, but first he must sleep.

Early the next morning, the Serenelli’s arrived. Giovanni was a man about sixty and his youngest son, Alessandro, was a strong and well-built young man of eighteen. The Serenelli’s lived upstairs while the Goretti’s lived downstairs. Anything above their crop quota the families could keep for their own needs. In this way they survived poverty and hunger, working side by side.

Giovanni Serenelli came from Assunta Goretti’s own country and spoke lovingly of the people and places that were dear to her heart. He also had a well-practiced and touching litany of his own miseries: his wife’s death in the asylum and a son’s confinement there, his other children following their own lives back home. He was now left with his youngest, destitute and alone, but willing to work with Luigi—for half of the profits and a communal life with the Goretti’s.

As the Serenelli’s diligently began to work to get the harvest under control, a bit of joy returned to the Goretti household. Assunta prepared her best meals. The children were happily amused with Alessandro’s prowess at catching birds and making reed whistles. But as autumn’s labors turned to the rainy, idle days of winter, the Serenelli’s dispositions soured.

Giovanni had taken a liking to the strong, local wines and became irritable and overbearing. Alessandro began to act vile, hostile and sullen, the result of years of maternal neglect and a youthful, depraved apprenticeship among the stevedores. He now shunned the children and spent his time locked in his room brooding over seamy magazines. Assunta discovered his hoard of pornographic books as she cleaned his room one day. She worried about Alessandro’s influence on her oldest son, Angelo, but unwilling to start a quarrel, she swallowed her first impulse to burn every piece of trash she found. Their home did not need more trouble. Luigi regretted their move from the mountains and especially repented of taking these two strangers into his home.

One day Luigi Goretti was bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria virus. The malaria was doing its subtle job through the winter. As spring beckoned with endless work, Luigi attempted to meet its rigors uncomplainingly. He came in from the fields pallid and exhausted. Each night the children knelt about the bed in prayer; Luigi looked at his beautiful little Maria, with her limpid eyes and rosy cheeks. Why had he not noticed her maturity and grace? Silently she prayed and wept for her family. As April 1902 ended, so did Luigi’s earthly life. As he lay surrounded by family and neighbors, he whispered haltingly to Assunta: “Go back to Corinaldo...”

Giovanni Serenelli became master of the farm. He was harsh and ruthless. He allowed Assunta and the children to stay and work for him. She desperately longed to go back to home and family, back to the fresh mountain life. She could not fulfill Luigi’s dying wish now. A woman traveling over two hundred miles alone with seven young children and no money was unthinkable. Giovanni insisted Maria, assume all the household duties while Assunta took her husband’s place and worked in the fields.

Her father’s illness and death, the Serenelli’s sinister cruelty, the never-ending labors of the farm had made Maria far too serious for her age. Her devotion to Jesus and her obedience to her mother was extraordinary. Even the other village children noticed her piety as she walked to town to sell eggs. It was with admiration and a touch of envy that they referred to Maria as “The Little Old Lady.”

Maria cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, and cared for her younger siblings. Additionally, she cooked and cleaned for the two Serenelli men. Maria never complained about the extra work she had to do, and instead was a source of encouragement to her mother’s worry, assuring her mother that Jesus would provide for them.

Maria was a pious child. Only a few months before, in 1901, Maria, although she could neither read nor write, had completed her Catechism instructions in order to receive her First Holy Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi.. How she had longed to take Jesus into her heart often! Once a week on Sunday just did not seem like enough. Maria managed the rigors of life because she had her Jesus for strength. This serious little girl had matured spiritually beyond her years, too. She went to Mass as often as possible, and grew in virtue, sanctity, maturity, and beauty.

Assunta noticed her young daughter’s character changing. There was no childish playfulness left in Maria. The cares of the world clouded her eyes with sadness. Her night prayers become longer. She examined her conscience repeatedly for occasions of sin, her small body trembled with fear and bitter sobs. Alessandro Serenelli had been stalking her for months now, prowling about with evil in his heart, threatening to kill her if she told a soul. She did not take Assunta into her confidence for fear of burdening her mother with more cares and creating more trouble with the Serenelli’s.

Alessandro, the young man with whom her family shared an adjoining residence, was a rough young man with a poor religious upbringing. Since his mother died in a psychiatric hospital when he was a baby, and his father was an alcoholic. Alessandro himself was given to drinking, swearing, and callous behavior. He had impure thoughts toward Maria, and when he would find her alone in the kitchen, which the two families shared, he would speak to her crudely and make sexual advances. Maria, in her great love for God, abhorred his behavior, rebuked his evil suggestions, and told him, “No, never, that is a sin! God forbids that and we would go to Hell!”

This harassment continued for months, and Maria and did her best to avoid him. She was in a precarious situation that was manipulated by Alessandro. Maria kept quiet about the abuse because Alessandro would help his mother with the more difficult tasks in the field; and even if she did speak up to her mother about what was happening, the family had nowhere else to go. Instead, Maria entrusted herself to Jesus.

On July 5th, 1902, Alessandro’s evil intentions came to a head. The intense summer sun burned down on the farm yard. Assunta watched her children playfully helping with the threshing. She gazed upon them with intense love. They were her last joy left in this life. Maria was up on the porch outside of the kitchen, fingers flying with needle and thread, baby Theresa asleep at her feet.

Maria was lost in thought, too. She was rejoicing in eager anticipation of going to Mass. Tomorrow was Sunday and the Feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus. How she longed to share herself with Him in Confession and Communion. Maria was working on the sewing and caring for the children while everyone else was out threshing in the fields. Seizing an opportunity for evil, Alessandro left his work, came up the steps. Then suddenly, Maria was startled by the sound of footsteps behind her. It was Alessandro. He demanded she come into the kitchen. She froze in terror. Maria’s silence further inflamed his foul passions. He grabbed her arm, dragged her into the kitchen, pressed a file used to sharpen farm tools, the end of which he had sharpened to a point, to her throat and bolted the door. He told her that if she did not finally allow him to have sexual relations with her, he would kill her. Maria, now a strong child rooted in her love for Jesus, refused. She fought him fiercely and screamed, “No! No Alessandro! It is a sin. God forbids it. You will go to Hell, Alessandro. You will go to Hell if you do it!” All went unseen and unheard.

As he moved to overtake her, Maria fought him off bravely. She told him she would rather die than allow him to do what he wanted to do to her. In a rage, Alessandro stabbed Maria nine times. The file passed through Maria’s tiny body from the front all the way through her back, again and again. Alessandro was 20 years old, and Maria was 11.

After the attack Maria lost consciousness. Maria awoke with the sun streaming through the kitchen window. She heard the children playing and the monotonous sound of the threshing. The baby Theresa was crying at the edge of the porch. Maria attempted to lift herself to the open kitchen door. Her call for help was more a submission to the searing pain.

Alessandro, thinking he had killed her, went into his room and shut the door. However, Maria soon regained consciousness and managed to crawl over to the door and open the latch in order to cry out for help. Alessandro, hearing the creak of the latch, came back and stabbed her five more times. He attacked her with such force that the file bent when it hit her spine.

A napping Giovanni heard the infant crying, and in an instant of exasperation for what he thought was Maria’s neglect, headed up the stairs. Maria was found by Giovanni, Alessandro’s father, in a pool of blood. Miraculously, Maria was still alive and conscious. His shout brought Assunta and the neighbors running, hearts pounding. They found Maria, tortured with pain, badly bruised and lying in a pool of blood. Assunta, recovering from shock questioned her Maria, as to what had happened. When her mother asked her who had done this to her, Maria was able to identify Alessandro as her attacker. “It was Alessandro, Mama... Because he wanted me to commit an awful sin and I would not.”

Maria was laid on a bed while a neighbor summoned the ambulance. She was then rushed to the hospital while Alessandro was taken off to jail. Assunta tried to soothe her daughter’s agony as the ambulance wagon bumped along on that torturous trip to the hospital in Nettuno.

The doctors attempted to repair the extensive damage and save Maria’s life, but could give Assunta no encouragement. She was badly dehydrated due to her large loss of blood, and she begged again and again for water. Because her intestines were pierced with their contents seeping into her body, the doctors couldn’t give her any water as this would only exacerbate her already life-threatening condition. A parish priest was called to give Maria her Last Rites and the Viaticum, before a risky operation was begun to save her life. The priest showed Maria a crucifix and told her that Jesus was also very thirsty as he suffered his torture on the cross; he asked Maria if she would offer up her thirst to Jesus for the salvation of sinners. Maria agreed, and didn’t ask for water again.

Maria unconsciously cried as she resisted Alessandro’s demands over and over. When she opened her eyes, they were transfixed upon the Statue of Our Lady placed at the foot of her bed. Awake she seemed to remember nothing of the previous day’s horrors and wished only to know of the well-being of her family. The parish priest reminded Maria that Jesus had pardoned those who had crucified Him. As she gazed at the crucifix on the far wall, she said without anger or resentment, “I, too, pardon him. I, too, wish that he could come some day and join me in Heaven.” Assunta’s tears flowed hot and heavy as she gave her sweet Maria her last earthly mother’s kiss.
The doctors began their surgery on each of Maria’s fourteen wounds. Because she was so weak, they couldn’t use any anesthesia. Maria was fully conscious as they widened each of her wounds in order to sew them up from the inside out. She didn’t cry out in pain once. She endured her agony in quiet and perfect patience, offering it all up to Jesus.

Despite the efforts of the doctors, they couldn’t control Maria’s bleeding or infection. After twenty excruciating hours of suffering, Maria died the next day on July 6th at the age of 11 years and 8 months. In her last moments the priest asked Maria to forgive her attacker. Her last words were: “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli … and I want him with me in Heaven forever.” As the bells throughout the city were proclaiming the vespers hour, Jesus came to gather sweet Maria into His eternal protection, her reward for strength and virtue beyond her tender years.

A week after Maria died, Assunta, with destitution now added to her poverty, no longer had any means to support her remaining five children while also raising them. She had to give each of them up for adoption.

Alessandro, when he was brought before the judge, pleaded innocent. He claimed that he was defending himself against Maria attacking him. Of course the judge knew Alessandro was lying, and as he was still a minor, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison instead of a life sentence. Alessandro’s bad behavior continued in prison. Because he was an angry young man in constant fights, he was placed in solitary confinement. He was completely unrepentant for his crime and his heart was hardened.

However, six years later, Maria appeared to Alessandro in a dream while he was in prison. She handed him 14 white lilies, the symbol of purity, without speaking a word—one flower for each time he stabbed her. Alessandro understood this to mean that Maria had forgiven him for his crime and that she was with God in Heaven. As a result, his heart was miraculously converted. He called for the bishop, confessed his crime, and lived out the rest of his sentence as a reformed man and model prisoner. In fact, he was let out of prison three years early due to his good behavior. Maria had become his special patron and intercessor.

After Alessandro was released from prison, now 27 years after the attack, he went right away to see Assunta, Maria’s mother. It was Christmas Eve. He knocked on her door and asked her if she knew who he was. She did in fact recognize him as Alessando Serenelli, the man who killed his daughter and destroyed her family.

Alessandro asked Assunta for her forgiveness for what he had done to her. Assunta replied, “If Maria forgives you, and God forgives you, how can I not also forgive you?” The two went together to Midnight Mass and received Holy Communion kneeling side by side. Alessandro also confessed his sin before the congregation and asked for their pardon as well. Assunta then adopted Alessandro as her own son.

After obtaining Assunta’s forgiveness, Alessandro went to live at a Franciscan monastery as a Lay Brother. He did odd jobs and helped the monastery as a porter and gardener. He also helped with the Franciscan-run school, and was so gentle with the children that they called him “Uncle.” He was known for living a quiet, peaceful, and holy life. Alessandro’s great devotion to Maria Goretti continued until his death in 1970. It is believed by some that Alessandro will also be declared a saint one day, that God did in fact grant Maria’s dying wish that he would be with her in Heaven.

The cause for Maria’s canonization opened in 1935, with Alessandro himself testifying to her sanctity and heavenly intercession on his behalf. Maria was then beatified in 1947. Assunta, a woman so destitute during her life, was now very rich. She remarks about her daughter’s beatification: “When I saw the Pope coming, I prayed, ‘Madonna, please help me.’ He put his hand on my head and said, blessed mother, happy mother, mother of a Blessed!”

One of the first miracles attributed to St. Maria Goretti’s intercession, aside from Alessandro’s conversion, was a construction worker who had his foot crushed by a stone. It was unable to be repaired and an amputation was scheduled for the next day. At that time holy cards with a prayer for Maria’s canonization were being distributed around Italy. The worker’s wife took one of these holy cards and wrapped it in the bandages on her husband’s foot. The next morning, when the doctors came to amputate, they found the man’s foot completely restored. He returned to work the same day.

Three years after her beatification, Maria Goretti was canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 24th, 1950. Alessandro Serenelli was in attendance at that historic ceremony, where the young girl he murdered, and to whom he was now so strongly devoted, was declared a saint—confirming what he already knew to be true.

Maria’s canonization Mass was also attended by Assunta, the first time in history that a mother was present to witness the canonization of her own child. Also present were Assunta’s four remaining children.

Article 9
Blessed Miguel Pro

José Ramón Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, also known as Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. (January 13th, 1891 – November 23rd, 1927) was a Mexican Jesuit priest executed under the presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles on the false charges of bombing and attempted assassination of former Mexican President Álvaro Obregón.

Pro’s arrest, lack of trial, and evidential support gained prominence during the Cristero War. Known for his religious piety and innocence, he was beatified in Rome on September 25th, 1988, by Pope John Paul II as a Catholic martyr, killed in odium fidei (in hatred of the Faith).

Historical background
At the time of Pro’s death, Mexico was ruled by fiercely anti-clerical and anti-Catholic President Plutarco Elías Calles who had begun what writer Graham Greene called the “fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth.”

Childhood
Miguel Pro, whose full name was José Ramón Miguel Agustín, was born into a mining family on January 13th, 1891, in Guadalupe, Zacatecas. He was the third of eleven children, four of whom had died as infants or young children.

Miguelito, as his doting family called him, was, from an early age, intensely spiritual and equally intense in hi mischievousness, frequently exasperating his family with his humor and practical jokes. As a child, he had a daring precociouness that sometimes went too far, tossing him into near-death accidents and illnesses. On regaining consciousness after one of these episodes, young Miguel opened his eyes and blurted out to his frantic parents: “I want some cocol” (“cocol” is a colloquial term for his favorite sweet bread). “Cocol” became his nickname, which he would later adopt as a code name during his clandestine ministry in religiously persecuted Mexico.

Two of his sisters joined a convent. Miguel was particularly close to his older sister and after she entered a cloistered convent, he came to recognize his own vocation to the priesthood. Although he was popular with the senoritas and had prospects of a lucrative career managing his father's thriving business concerns, Miguel renounced everything for Christ his King and entered the Jesuit novitiate in El Llano, Michoacan, on August 15th, 1911.

Jesuit life in Mexico, Persecution, Exile Abroad, and Ordination
One of his companions, Pulido, said that he “had never seen such an exquisite wit, never coarse, always sparkling.” He was noted for his charity and ability to speak about spiritual subjects without boring his audience. Pulido remarked that there were two Pros: the playful Pro and the prayerful Pro. He was known for the long periods he spent in the chapel.

Long-time President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz was ousted in 1911 after staging a rigged reelection, and a struggle for power ― the Mexican Revolution ― began.

Pro studied in Mexico until 1914 when a tsunami of governmental anti-Catholicism forced the novitiate to disband and made the Jesuits to flee to another Jesuit house in Los Gatos, California, in the United States. Miguel and his brother seminarians trekked through Texas and New Mexico before arriving at the Jesuit house in Los Gatos. He then went to study a seminary in Granada, Spain (1915–1919), and from 1919 to 1922 taught in Nicaragua. He went to Belgium for his ordination to the priesthood in 1925.

In the meantime, back in Mexico, a new constitution for the country had been signed (1917). Five articles of the 1917 Constitution of Mexico were particularly aimed at suppression of the Catholic Church. Article 3 mandated secular education in schools, prohibiting the Church from participating in primary and secondary education. Article 5 outlawed monastic religious orders. Article 24 forbade public worship outside of church buildings, while Article 27 restricted religious organizations’ rights to own property. Finally, Article 130 revoked basic civil rights of clergy members: priests and religious workers were prevented from wearing their habits, were denied the right to vote, and were forbidden from commenting on public affairs to the press. Most of the anti-clerical provisions of the constitution were removed in 1998.

For his theological studies Pro was sent to Enghien, Belgium, where the French Jesuits (also in exile) had their faculty of Theology. His health continued to deteriorate. There he was ordained a priest on August 31st, 1925. He wrote on that occasion: “How can I explain to you the sweet grace of the Holy Spirit, which invades my poor miner’s soul with such heavenly joys? I could not hold back the tears on the day of my ordination, above all at the moment when I pronounced, together with the bishop, the words of the consecration. After the ceremony the new priests gave their first blessing to their parents. I went to my room, laid out all the photographs of my family on the table, and then blessed them from the bottom of my heart.”

His first assignment as a priest was to work with the miners of Charleroi, Belgium. Despite the socialist, communist, and anarchist tendencies of the workers, he was able to win them over and preach the Gospel to them.

Miguel suffered from a severe stomach problem, and, three months after ordination, he was forced to undergo several operations for ulcers. He remained cheerful and courageous, explaining that the source of his strength was his prayer. After three operations, when his health did not improve, his superiors, in 1926, allowed him to return to Mexico in spite of the grave religious persecution in that country.

Return to Mexico
In summer 1926 ― his studies in Europe completed ― Pro returned to Mexico during the time when all public worship was banned in Mexico. On the way he visited Lourdes where he celebrated Mass and visited the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Pro arrived at Veracruz on July 8th, 1926. The churches were closed and priests were in hiding. Plutarco Elías Calles was now president of Mexico. Unlike his predecessors, Calles vigorously enforced the anti-Catholic provisions of the 1917 constitution, implementing the so-called Calles Law, which provided specific penalties for priests who criticized the government (five years’ imprisonment), or priests who wore clerical garb in certain situations outside their churches (500 pesos). This law went into effect on July 31st, 1926.

By this time, some states, such as Tabasco under the notorious anti-Catholic Tomás Garrido Canabal, had closed all the churches and cleared the entire state of openly serving priests, killing many of them, forcing a few to marry, and the remaining few serving covertly at risk of their lives. On his return Pro served a Church which was forced to go “underground.” Since the government did not know he was a priest, Padre Pro went about clandestinely--sometimes in disguise―celebrating Mass, distributing Communion, hearing Confessions, and anointing the sick. He celebrated the Eucharist clandestinely and ministered the other sacraments to small groups of Catholics.

In addition to fulfilling their spiritual needs, he also carried out the works of mercy by assisting the poor in Mexico City with their temporal needs. He adopted many interesting disguises in carrying out his secret ministry. He would come in the middle of the night dressed as a beggar to baptize infants, bless marriages and celebrate Mass. He would appear in jail dressed as a police officer to bring Holy Viaticum to condemned Catholics. When going to fashionable neighborhoods to procure for the poor, he would show up at the doorstep dressed as a fashionable businessman with a fresh flower on his lapel. His many exploits could rival those of the most daring spies. In all that he did, however, Fr. Pro remained obedient to his superiors and was filled with the joy of serving Christ, his King.

Details of Pro’s ministry in the underground church come from his many letters, signed with the nickname Cocol. In October 1926, a warrant for his arrest was issued. He was arrested and released from prison the next day, but kept under surveillance.

Arrest and execution
A failed attempt to assassinate Álvaro Obregón, which only wounded him, in November 1927, provided the state with a pretext for arresting Pro again, this time with his brothers Humberto and Roberto. Someone tried to kill the president by throwing a bomb out of a car that Miguel’s brother used to own. A young engineer who confessed his part in the attempted assassination testified that the Pro brothers were not involved. Miguel and his brothers were captured and taken to the Detective Inspector’s Office in Mexico City. Fr. Pro was condemned to death for the murder attempt.

President Calles gave orders to have Pro executed for the assassination attempt. Calles had the execution meticulously photographed, and the newspapers throughout the country carried photos on the front page the following day. Presumably, Calles thought that the sight of the pictures would frighten the Cristeros rebels who were fighting against his troops, particularly in the state of Jalisco. However, they had the opposite effect.

Pro and his brothers were visited by Generals Roberto Cruz and Palomera Lopez around 11 p.m. on November 22, 1927. The next day, November 23rd, 1927, Pro was executed without trial. As Pro walked from his cell to the courtyard and the firing squad, he blessed the soldiers. Miguel Pro’s last request was to be allowed to kneel and pray. He knelt, and briefly prayed quietly. Declining a blindfold, he faced his executioners with a Crucifix in one hand and a Rosary in the other and held his arms extended in the form of a cross in imitation of the crucified Christ, and welcomed the bullets while shouting out: “May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, Thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!” Before the firing squad was ordered to shoot, Pro raised his arms in imitation of Christ and shouted the defiant cry of the Cristeros, “Viva Cristo Rey!” ― “Long live Christ the King!” When the initial shots of the firing squad failed to kill him, a soldier shot him at point-blank range.

Calles is reported to have looked down upon a throng of 40,000 which lined Pro’s funeral procession. Another 20,000 waited at the cemetery where he was buried without a priest present, his father saying the final words. The Cristeros became more animated and fought with renewed enthusiasm, many of them carrying the newspaper photo of Pro before the firing squad.

Beatification
At Pro’s beatification in Saint Peter’s Square on September 25th, 1988, Pope John Paul II said: “Neither suffering nor serious illness, nor the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away. Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to him, even unto death.”

Article 10
Catholic Martyrs Under Communists and Nazis

The sheer number of Soviet imprisonments is staggering and it included many Catholics. By 1934, the 3,300 Catholic churches and 2,000 chapels on Russian soil had been reduced to two active churches, primarily meant to serve foreigners as a public demonstration that Catholicism supposedly existed in Russia.

The Catholic population along the Black Sea ―over 200,000 ― disappeared. Estimates of the number of prisoners overall in the Soviet Union begin at 19 million and at least 40% died as a minimum number.

Catholic monasteries were replaced in the Solovetski Islands by Russian camps consecrating these once sacred islands as a massive Catholic burial ground.

In 1941, 250,000 religious people were killed by the Soviets as they retreated when the Nazis invaded Ukraine. When the Nazis arrived, their extermination began where the Soviets left off.

The Nazis were more anti-Catholic than anyone ever realized. More than 8,000 priests were killed by the Nazis with thousands incarcerated in camps.

Father Andrew Graff Sheptytskyi, of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, worked against the Nazis in the 1940s to maintain a Church independent of any worldly power. He protested to Hitler about the Gestapo and protected persecuted Jews. When he visited towns and villages where Jews were living, the Jews greeted him by carrying the Scrolls as a sign of their respect.

Sister Maria Restituta was a nurse-nun arrested after the doctor in her operating room accused her of “dangerous language?” ― meaning she expressed some opposition to the Nazis. After 8 months of abuse, she remained openly faithful: “I live for Christ and I die for Christ!” So they took her out and shot her.

Often the prison camps heard the following command: “Jews and priests” are to do this or that or to fall out of their columns for special unpleasant treatment. “Jews and priests” were always coupled together because in the eyes of camp authorities, one could not be worse than to be a Jew or a priest—or a committed Catholic.

Over 3 million Polish Catholics died at Auschwitz before it was used for the murder of Jews. The response from Pope Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, was greeted with such suppression by the Nazis that the good Pope could only say: “There is but one alternative left―that of heroism?” It would not be rash to suspect that half of the American bishops (“Rosenbergers”?) do not know what he was talking about.

The actual number of the thousands of Catholic priests, nuns and laymen murdered by the Nazis will never be known.

Then there is German Bishop Clemens August von Galen exhorting all to struggle against the Nazis. During a sermon about protecting children from the Nazis, someone stood up and shouted out: “What right does a celibate, without wife or children, have to talk about the problems of youth and marriage?” Von Galen wittingly reposted: “Never will I tolerate in this cathedral any negative reflection on our beloved Fuhrer [Adolf Hitler]!”

Then there is Franz Jagerstatter, who wanted nothing to do with “the Nazi gang.” They tortured him and used the guillotine having him face up to watch the blade at his death. Knowing right from wrong, knowing truth, oneness, good and beauty, he could do that. It is pathetic that so many of our clergy, bishops, leaders and lay people do not have the same sentiments!

After Second World War, the Soviets once again took over murdering Catholics. There is Joseph Slippyi, Ukrainian Bishop, who was sent from one Soviet Gulag to another for years of incredibly hard camp life, torture and suffering—his strength was such that the Soviets laughably tried to tempt him in 1959 with an offer to make him the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow if he agreed to break with Rome. He preferred to stay in the Gulag and in exile.

By 1949, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, with 4 dioceses, 8 bishops, 2,772 parishes, 4,119 churches and chapels, 142 monasteries and chapels, 2,628 diocesan priests, 164 monks, 773 nuns, 229 seminarians and over 4 million lay people, was liquidated or disbursed and all Catholicism was gone. At the same time, the Uniates of Ukraine (who were part of the Roman Catholic Church) lost at least ten million dead to the Soviets.