Dying for Christ

By Sam Lucero
News and Information Manager

This Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, who was crucified for preaching a message of love. For 2,000 years this message has endured and thousands of Christians have died witnessing to it.

We call them martyrs for the faith, and according to Catholic tradition, St. Stephen the deacon, stoned to death by a mob led by Saul about one year after Christ's death, is considered the first martyr.

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Today, men and women witnessing their faith continue to be persecuted. Quite often they are missionaries serving in foreign lands. Sometimes they are local church leaders preaching the Gospel amid civil discord.

According to Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency, 20 missionaries were killed while spreading the Gospel in 2007. The list included 14 priests, three subdeacons, a Marist brother, a Franciscan sister and a seminarian from the Society of St. Paul. Those killed lived or were serving in Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Guatemala, Kenya, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.

Among those killed were an Iraqi priest and three subdeacons, shot outside a church last June in Mosul, Iraq.

Just last month, kidnappers at the same church in Mosul abducted Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and killed three people traveling with him. On March 14, the archbishop's body was recovered by church officials in Iraq. (See story on page 12 [print edition only].)

Sr. Anne Thole, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family, was the only woman religious and missionary to die in 2007. While her death was not due to violence, she did pay the ultimate price for trying to save others.

According to Fides, she died in April trying to rescue three AIDS patients trapped in a fire in a clinic in Ratschitz, South Africa. "'We can still save the others' were her last words as she walked into the flames," stated Fides.

To read more about church workers killed in recent years, go to www.fides.org.

In memory of the victims of religious persecution, the Pontifical Mission Societies in Italy began a Day of Fasting and Prayer for Martyred Missionaries in 1992. The observance is held each March 24, the day Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated in 1980.

Preaching the Gospel and living the Gospel life continue to be hazards to people of faith around the world. Whether they are defending the poor, calling for justice, or working for peace, missionaries put their lives on the line each day.

We as Catholics have an obligation to remember the martyrs of our faith. Pope Benedict XVI exhorts us to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice preaching the Good News.

"To be a missionary means loving God with all one's being and giving, if necessary, even one's life for him," he stated in a message for World Mission Sunday in October 2006.

As we recall Jesus' death and resurrection on Easter Sunday, let us also pay tribute to the many men and women who gave their lives in service to God. May we pray that the injustices that exist around the world today, and which lead to a climate of violence against missionaries, be resolved through peaceful means.

Finally, let us imitate the passion for Christ that exists in modern-day missionaries who live by a credo attributed to Mother Teresa: "Do not be afraid of loving to the point of sacrifice, until it hurts. Jesus' love for us led him to his death."