Posted on 08/27/2014 11:27:18 AM PDT by marshmallow
From the moment news broke that U.S. journalist James Foley had been beheaded by Islamic State extremists in the Middle East, many Christians, especially Foley’s fellow Catholics, began calling him a martyr, with some even saying he should be considered a saint.
Yet that characterization has left others uneasy, and the discussion is raising larger questions about what constitutes martyrdom.
Foley’s parents seemed to validate the martyrdom label when his father, John, spoke at an emotional news conference outside the family’s New Hampshire home and said he and his wife “believe he was a martyr.” Foley’s mother, Diane, added that her son “reminds us of Jesus. Jesus was goodness, love — and Jim was becoming more and more that.”
In an interview two days later with Katie Couric, Foley’s younger brother, Michael, recounted how Pope Francis had called the family to console them and in their conversation “referred to Jim’s act as, really, martyrdom.”
Numerous commentators had already picked up on that idea, holding Foley up not only as a witness to the Christian faith but as a spur for believers in the West to take more seriously the plight of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East who are being persecuted to a degree that some say is comparable to genocide.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionnews.com ...
Where do I start?
And to be clear, I am not judging James Foley’s soul one way or another. I certainly hope that he went to Heaven. I just want to see support for Church teaching on this matter in general. So far, all I can find are people saying that martyrdom removes mortal sin is Church teaching.
Is there not a Church document out there somewhere that discusses this? You’re a priest. I’m guessing you know where to find that.
The first place I’d go would be the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
A quick search doesn’t turn up much.
The Catechism does not discuss this question.
It is safe to presume that a person who refuses to abandon the Faith, knowing he will be killed as a result, and does this out of love, has by that fact made an act of perfect contrition.
I can think of one example off the top of my head. There is a group of recognized martyrs who were killed by Protestants in Belgium or Holland, I believe. One of them was a priest who was a notorious womanizer, and he was confronted with this fact, and mocked by his persecutors. I.e., they tried to shame him, hoping to break his resolve.
He replied: “A fornicator I always was; a heretic I never was.” He is honored as a martyr with all the others of his group. If I can find an account of this incident, I will post it. Of course, there is no way to know whether he might have made a good confession since his last mortal sin.
I would be very surprised to find that there has ever been a magisterial document dealing with this precise question. The answer would be found in the consensus of moral theologians.
The fact that martyrdom obviates the need for Baptism strongly suggests that it obviates the necessity of sacramental absolution as well.
The sacraments were given to us as the ordinary means of grace. They were not created by God in order to close off the possibility of the action of grace by other channels.
The fact that martyrdom obviates the need for Baptism strongly suggests that it obviates the necessity of sacramental absolution as well.
That makes sense.
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