Vatican City – The martyrs and witnesses of our time represent “one of the Church’s greatest resources for proclaiming the Gospel in today’s world”. This was one of the key points in the address delivered by Leo XIV to participants in the conference “The 21st Century: A new time of martyrs?”, organized by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and the Commission for New Martyrs – Witnesses to the Faith.
Witnesses to the faith, the Pope stressed, “do not propose an ideology, but show a faith lived out in everyday life”. Even in cultural contexts marked by indifference, the “holiness next door” and quiet heroism can challenge everyone, “even the most skeptical”. Shedding light on this evangelizing power, the Pope referred to St Paul VI, who in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi observed that people today listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers and, when they do listen to teachers, it is because those teachers are themselves witnesses.
The Bishop of Rome focused on the designation “witnesses of the faith”, which encompasses a broader category than martyrs whose causes of beatification are underway or those who have already been inscribed among the Blessed and Saints.
Established by Pope Francis in 2023, the Commission aims to gather testimonies about those who have lost their lives for Christ, irrespective of the canonical process, so that their example is not lost.
This distinction also makes it possible to include cases in which the motives behind the violence cannot be explicitly attributed to “hatred of the faith”. Many Christians, Leo XIV recalled, “are killed as a result of the abuse of power or by criminal organization” because they oppose these injustices in the name of the Gospel. Their commitment to the Gospel exposes them to violence in complex historical circumstances, which the Commission is called upon to document.
For this reason, the Pope explained, this work, carried out with the support of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, is “of a historiographical and educational nature, not a legal one.” The focus is on the victim’s state of mind rather than on the persecutor’s motives. In other words, the emphasis is on the fact that the victim remained faithful to Christ in fulfilling their evangelical commitment and did so unto death. Gathering these stories therefore means safeguarding a testimony without conflating this service with the canonical process for recognizing martyrdom.
Leo XIV placed these lives within the context of our own time, “dominated by the culture of power, of boundless force and by the ceaseless development of weapon systems”. It is precisely in this context that the gift represented by the new witnesses of the faith emerges.
Brothers and sisters who lived in different geographical, historical and political contexts, in whose lives – including the circumstances in which their lives were taken from them – the reflection of Christ’s victory over evil and death became evident. In them, the Pontiff added, “the Christian way of life” is manifested, “one that never seeks confrontation, but rather defuses it through the power of meekness.”
Quoting Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, Leo XIV recalled that a disciple is ready to put his or her whole life on the line, even to accepting martyrdom, yet “the goal is not to make enemies but to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed.”
In his concluding remarks, the Pope compared these brothers and sisters to “stars that shine out in the darkness of selfishness and oppression”, helping the Church to reflect the light of Christ and thereby pointing humanity towards the “civilization of love”.
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