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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
On the evening of the first of August, 1996, the Dominican Bishop of Oran in Algeria, Pierre Claverie, was murdered by a bomb placed in a side-road near his house. He had been warned many times about the danger of remaining in the country, especially since an underground group of Muslim terrorists had begun deliberately targeting people like himself. But he chose to stay. In the days after his death, against the wall near the place where he and his driver had been blown up, the local people placed flowers and small written tributes in his memory. Among them was a card from a young Algerian woman called Yasmina. On the card she wrote: “Ce soir, mon Pére, je n’ai pas de paroles. Mais j’ai des larmes et de l’espoir”. (“This evening, Father, I have no words. But I have tears and hope.”) Because these words are both heart-broken and hope-filled, I can think of no words more fitting to use as a title for this paper on martyrdom. “I Have Tears and Hope": Martyrdom in the Twentieth Century.
I say “tears”, first, because looking back over the last one hundred years, one soon comes to realize that perhaps no other century in history has witnessed the death and martyrdom of so many people, or has seen so much systematic and deliberate torture of the innocent. And, added to the usual tragic circumstances associated with martyrdom, a vast number of people in the 20th century, found themselves caught up helplessly between the two great opposing ideologies of Fascism and Communism.
1 L'Osservatore Romano, 3 August, 1996, n. 177, p. 1.
2 The authenticity of this letter and the story concerning Felicitas were both confirmed for me in private conversation with one of Felicitas' brothers, Laurien Ntezimana. For a brief reference to the death of Felicitas, see “Preface” to Laurien's book, Libres paroles d'un theologien rwandais (Paris 1998)Google Scholar p.8.
3 A Door in the Hive, (New York 1984) p.35Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., pp.37–8.
5 See Commemorazione Ecumenica dei Testimoni della Fede del Secolo XX (Roma 2000) p.105Google Scholar.
6 Cited in Fisichella, Rino, “II Martirio come Testimonianza: Contributi per una riflessione sulla definizione di Martire”, in Portare Chrism all'Uomo: Congresso del Ventennio dal Concilio Vaticano II (Roma 1985) p.766Google Scholar.
7 Homily given on July 29, 1979. See The Church is All of You: Selections from the Homilies, Letters and interviews of the Martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, ed. and trans. by Brockman, J.R. (Minneapolis 1984) p.92Google Scholar.
8 See “Martyr” by Rino Fisichella in Dictionary of Fundamental Theology (Middlegreen 1994) pp.620–30Google Scholar; Karl Rahner, S.J., “Dimensions of Martyrdom: A Plea for the Broadening of a Classical Concept”, Concilium 163 (1983) pp. 9–11Google Scholar; Figura, Michael. “Martyrdom and Discipleship” in Theology Digest 45:1 (Spring 1998) pp.45–500Google Scholar.
9 In Epistolam ad Romanos, VIII, lect.7. Thomas states elsewhere that those who die defending society (res publica) from those who seek to undermine the Christian faith, deserve to be called martyrs. See In IV Sent., dist.49, q.5 a.3, quaest.2, ad 11. See also Summa Theologiae II.II q.124 ad1.
10 Suso, , The Exemplar, trans., Tobin, J. (New York 1989) p.371Google Scholar.
11 Cited in Chenu, Bruno, The Book of Christian Martyrs, trans. Bowden, J. (London 1990) pp.169–70Google Scholar.
12 Cited in Fisichella, “Martyr”, p.628.
13 The Pursuit of Happiness, God's Way: Living the Beatitudes, trans. Noble, Mary Thomas Sr (New York 1998) p. 185Google Scholar.
14 Fisicella, “Martyr”, p.620.
15 Moltmann, , The Way of Jesus Christ (London 1990) p.197Google Scholar.
16 Lawrence, T.E., The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London 1976) p.4Google Scholar.
17 “I Have a Dream” in The Voice of Black America: Major Speeches by Negroes in the United States, 1797–1971, ed., Farer, P.S. (New York 1972) p.974Google Scholar.
18 Cited in The Book of Christian Martyrs, pp.185–86.
19 Cited in Ansbro, John J., The Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York 1975) p.90Google Scholar.
20 Cited in Casalis, George, “Theology under the Sign of Martyrdom”, Concilium 163 (March 1983) p. 81Google Scholar.
21 Ibid., p.81.
22 “Illuminating Grace” in Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Westminster, Maryland, 1966; first published, 1849) p. 181Google Scholar.
23 Hartnett, , “He'll to the Moors”, Selected and New Poems (Loughcrew 1994) p.97Google Scholar.
24 'The Political Dimension of the Faith for the Perspective of the Option for the Poor, A talk given at the University of Louvain on 2 Feb 1980. The text translated with some slight variations can be found in Liberation Theology: A Documentary History, ed., Hennelly, A.T. (New York 1983) p.300Google Scholar.
25 Etty: A Diary, 1941–43, trans., Pomerans, A.J. (London 1983) p. 196Google Scholar.
26 See La Vita del beato J. Savonarola; composed by an anonymous author of the sixteenth century, and edited by Ginori Conti (Florence 1937) p. 182.
27 Ibid., p. 182.
28 “Dernière homélie”, Lo Vie Spirituelle (December 1996) p.836.
29 “Testament of Dom Christian De Cherge” in Olivera, Bernardo O.C.S.O., How Far to Follow?: The Martyrs of Atlas (Petersham 1997) p. 127Google Scholar.
30 Ibid., p. 129.
31 St Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium, 26:4. (P.L. 35, 1608.)
32 See “Our Brothers of Atlas” in Olivera, How Far To Follow?, pp.33–4.
33 “Dernière homélie”, pp.833–34.
34 Ibid., p.834.
35 Ibid., p.836.
36 Ibid., p.836. Two drafts of Pierre's homily have survived with small differences between them. The phrase in square brackets, “wherever humanity is crucified”. belongs to the first. unpublished draft.
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