Monday, May 4, 2015

Playing The Role of "Martyr"


"It's not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr."
--St. Augustine 

 According to the the National Catholic Reporter, "Pope" Francis has once again called any Christian who is killed a "martyr," regardless of whether they belong to the True Church or just a sect. NCR writes:"Pope Francis has often referred to an 'ecumenism of blood', saying that persecution is uniting Christians. 'They are witnesses to Jesus Christ,' he said in January.'They are persecuted and killed because they are Christians. Those who persecute them make no distinction between the religious communities to which they belong. They are Christians and for that they are persecuted. This, brothers and sisters, is the ecumenism of blood.'"

 Just as disturbing is the fact that, as reported by Religious News Service, Frankie officially declared (on February 3) that "Archbishop" Oscar Romero, assassinated by a right-wing death squad in 1980 while celebrating the Novus Bogus bread and wine service in El Salvador, was a "martyr for the faith", clearing the way for his "beatification." This man was--for all intents and purposes---a Communist in religious garb who was killed because of his political views which he disseminated from the pulpit every chance he had.

 I wish to set forth the traditional Church teaching on what makes a man or a woman a true martyr, and neither Romero nor some strange idea of "ecumenism of blood" qualify for the title. The following points I condensed from Fr. Ronald Knox's wonderful treatise The Theology of Martyrdom (B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Missouri, (1929)).

1. The word "martyr" means "witness." It means you give witness to the True Faith by your death. Martyrdom implies, not simply losing your life, but giving up your life. Your life is prematurely cut short in the interests of something greater than yourself. Suffering by itself, nor suffering followed by death is martyrdom properly so called.

2. The Church does not bestow the title of martyr upon those heroic priests, nuns, and layman who have persistently attended to the suffering in times of pestilence. St. Aloysius, whose death was brought on by such a labor was not canonized a martyr. These deaths were not the result of the assertion of religious truth against the enemies of religious truth. They laid down their lives for Christ's sake, but not for Christ's quarrel.

3. The faith one dies for can only be the unadulterated, Integral Catholic Faith; the One True Religion. To those who object that non-Catholics can receive Baptism of Desire, and it is therefore hypocritical to deny Protestants who, in good faith, die for a false belief the title of martyrs, it can be demonstrated their argument is without merit.  Baptism of Desire does not deny the objectivity of Truth, as this argument presupposes. The world tells us "Be good and you will go to Heaven, if such a place exists." A martyr is not someone who dies for what they believe, it is someone who dies for the Truth. Thomas Crammer died because he disbelieved in the papacy and the Mass. St. Thomas More died because he believed in the papacy and the Mass. Both cannot be true, so to make martyrs of both means either objective truth doesn't matter or doesn't exist.

4. As an adult, you must have the intention to die as a witness for the Truth. If a Traditionalist is killed in his sleep (unaware he was in any danger) by someone who is an enemy of the Faith, he does not qualify as a martyr. The Church means, by martyrdom, death undergone at the hands of those who hate the True Catholic Faith, for the sake of the True Catholic Faith; and undergone, in the case of adults, deliberately. Infants, killed for the sake of the True Faith, by those who hate the True Faith, die as martyrs without any intention necessary. They receive Baptism of Blood (if unbaptized) and their salvation is assured. (e.g. The Holy Innocents).

5. On the part of the enemies of Christ, a certain odium fidei ("hatred of the Faith") is necessary. A wholesale abandonment of the Faith, or hatred of all beliefs, is not necessary. To hate any article of True Faith/Morals because it is taught by the Church will suffice. Therefore, Henry VIII did not have to abandon every belief of the Church. Denying divorce and remarriage is adultery and hating that belief because the Church teaches it as true, was sufficient without more, to establish an odium fidei.

6. A soldier who takes up arms to fight a just war is not to be considered a martyr if he dies. Hence, the one who dies must not be guilty of provocation---that he died because he didn't kill the other man first. The exception is with captured soldiers who, now unarmed, are given the option of death or apostasy.

7. Notice how different this is from the Moslem conception of committing suicide while killing others (e.g. 9/11 attacks) as "martyrdom"!

Oscar Romero was killed for political reasons. The innocent people killed by the Moslem terrorist group ISIS did not profess the Integral Catholic Faith. Hence, neither qualify as "martyrs." In perpetrating a new definition of martyrdom, Bergoglio has cheapened both the True Faith and its true martyrs. By accepting "ecumenism of blood," you accept moral relativism and  religious indifferentism--the very foundations of the Vatican II sect.

8 comments:

  1. Didn't the holy innocents happen before Jesus Christ was crucified?

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    1. Yes. But just as Mary was redeemed by the Immaculate Conception in view of the merits of Christ's death, so too were the Holy Innocents martyred.
      --Introibo

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    2. No disrespect intended and I know we don't agree.I have always thought by accepting Bod/Bob,it would 1 day open a Pandora's box.Recently read about the Vatican 2 sect's new idea of "marriage of desire".(couples living in sin no I am not joking it's horrible!)

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    3. You are correct about the "marriage by desire" and other aberrations emanating from the V2 sect. It certainly is horrible. This type of distortion is what led Fr Feeney to react the way he did more than 60 years ago!
      However, we must remember that instead of defending the truth he distorted things whereby the true understanding of BOD and BOB were denied altogether. Let's not forget that all truths can be subject to horrible abuse. People (even some Traditionalists!) live as they please and presume that God will grant them the Last Rites or at least a perfect Act of Contrition before they die. Their sin of presumption does not mean God won't grant certain souls this grace. A perfect Act of Contrition is de facto, "Penance by Desire."
      ---Introibo

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  2. Thomas More did not die for the Mass. Henry VIII did not alter or obstruct the traditional Latin Mass. Henry VIII attended Mass daily and sometimes three times a day. More died because he objected to Henry becoming the head of the Church in England. The Mass had nothing to do with it. As long as Henry VIII lived the traditional Mass in England was safe; only after his demise did it begin to be changed and then proscribed. King Henry was certainly a tyrant but not with regard to the Mass.

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    1. Sorry to disagree with you Mr. Hoffman. Traditional Catholic theology comes into play. In order to be VALID, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be offered by a properly trained and validly ordained priest who uses the correct matter and form while having the intention to do what the Church does. This will infallibly confect the Holy Eucharist which will present through time and space the Sacrifice of Calvary, only in an unbloody manner. The priest is acting "in persona Christi" or "in the Person of Christ."

      However, to be EFFICACIOUS, the priest must offer the Mass "in persona Ecclesiae" or "in the Person of the Church." The priest must be in union with the papacy and not a known heretic or schismatic. Otherwise the Mass does nothing to advance your salvation. That is why you cannot attend the Mass of a valid priest, ordained by Apb. Lefebvre in the Traditional Rite, who belongs to the Society of St Peter. Using the 1962 Missal, his Mass is valid but he is in formal union with false pope Francis and the heresies of Vatican II. This Mass is not pleasing to God, it is offered outside the True Church and no Traditionalist can attend without committing mortal sin against the First Commandment.
      Henry VIII, attended several valid yet illicit Masses cut off from the Church each day. Each one was another sin on his soul. With every Communion he would, in the words of St Paul "eat and drink damnation" unto himself (See 1Cor. 11:29) for Henry did not discern the Body and Blood of The Lord within the True Church, but communicated unworthily.
      Ergo, he did change the Mass by cutting it off from the Church, and St. Thomas More died for the Mass--the Integral Mass of Christ's One True Church, outside of which no one can be saved.
      ---Introibo

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  3. Introibo in your reply of May 5 you repeat (twice) that a "perfect act of contrition" will save. Not so. This is a common error. No matter how perfect the act of ordinary contrition is it will not save by itself. It must be an act of "perfect contrition". It is not the " perfect act" but the" perfect contrition" that saves.

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    1. You are correct. "Perfect" should modify "contrition" and not the "act."
      Mea culpa
      --Introibo

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