INTRODUCTION

by

His Eminence the Most Reverend Cardinal

Darío Castrillón Hoyos

Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy

martyrdom and the witnesses of faith

"The whole world and all the earthly kingdoms are of no use to me; for me it is better to die for Jesus Christ, than to reign over the whole world. I search for He who died for us; I want He who resurrected for us". These vibrant words by Saint Ignacio from Antioch just before he became a martyr (Epistola ad Romanos, 4,1), allow us to understand how, in the supreme testimony rendered to the faith’s truth, Good Friday and the Sunday of Resurrection are always simultaneously present.

In the mystery of redemption, the blood of the martyrs is always Life. The testimony of Christians is continuously subjected to the mystery of the grain of wheat: "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." (John 12, 24).

On the eve of His Passion, Christ announced His glorification through His death: He is the grain of wheat that by dying produced fruits of immortal life. It is in the footprints of the crucified King that in the course of the centuries His disciples became millions "from every nation, race, people and language"; after the Apostles, many of those professing the faith, priests, nuns, lay people, all became the Gospel’s courageous heralds, the Kingdom’s silent servants, "many of them nameless – as the Holy Father writes in the Apostolic Letter "Tertio millennio adveniente" – unknown soldiers as it were of God’s great cause" (no. 37).

In all the Church’s historical periods Tertullian’s words have always repeated themselves: the blood of martyrs is a seed (see Apologetico, n. 50). "The Church of the first millennium was born of the blood of martyrs – states the Pope in the aforementioned Letter -, (…). At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs" (Ibidem.).

This is what we shall address in today’s twenty ninth international theological video-conference, on the subject: "Martyrdom and the new martyrs".

The papers presented by the Theologians will emphasise that the blood of the martyrs, due to God the Father’s unfathomable redeeming will, has allowed the defence and continuity of the world, of our times and our history, of the Life of His One Only-Begotten Son. It was the blood placed on the two posts and the architraves of the doors of the homes that protected the Israelites during Egypt’s dark night when the angel of death prowled (see Es 12,7.12). It was once again the blood of the Innocent Martyrs, the newborn - one could say Jesus’ contemporaries - that protected from death God’s new People, the dawning Church, which unknowingly welcomed the new divine Life that had just blossomed. But this was only the image and anticipation of far more important blood, that of Christ, the bearer of definitive redemption. It is in Him that this mystery of blood is totally fulfilled.

"No sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet" said the Lord. Jonah’s sign is Christ Crucified, and so are the witnesses who complete "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1,24). Their sacrifice, associated to that made by Christ, ensures that the history of our redemption always bears the mark and the indelible seal of the blood of the Redeemer, the bearer of eternal life.

Hence the Speakers for this video-conference will lead us to the rediscovery of martyrdom’s Christological and Ecclesiological dimension: Christ’s sequela becomes the law for the Church’s spiritual fecundity. All the great ecclesial realities arise from the humble seed of martyrdom. In this sense Saint Paul’s life is paradigmatic. The success of his mission was not only the result of his great rhetorical art or his pastoral prudence: fecundity was linked to suffering, to his communion with the passion of Christ (see. 1 Cor 2,1 ss.; Gal 4,12-14).

In the papers that follow, we will also hear about the 20^th Century’s new martyrs, and it will become clear to us that the law of the martyr’s apostolic fecundity is the law of the expropriation of his Self. The Christian witness is not in search of himself, he does not wish to increase his power and extend his supremacy over mundane realities, he does not search for listening for himself because he does not speak for himself, but serves the good of humankind, leaving space for He who is Life. This expropriation of the Self offered to Christ for the redemption of humankind, is still toady, in this Third Millennium, the foundation for the effectiveness of the new evangelisation.

We will understand that martyrdom is always the result of a radical answer to a special grace from God. It is not the result of human improvisation, an accidental event in a self-centred life, a life lived in mediocrity or calculating one’s own interest, but rather the extreme manifestation of an existence capable of habitually giving itself up. Martyrdom is the epiphany of a free existence, in communion with God and with humankind (see Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, no. 24).

In this perspective, we also understand the words written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian martyr in the Nazi concentrations camps, who on Christmas Day 1943 composed a prayer for the other prisoners, in poetic form, and known as the "morning prayer". These are a few of his verses: "I am alone, but You do not abandon me;/ I m afraid, but there is help in Thee,/ I am restless but there is peace in Thee;/ …I do not understand Your paths, but You know my path" ("Resistance and Surrender" edited by A. Gallas, Ed. Paoline, Cinisello Balsamo, 1988, p. 238).

As always in thanking those invited to speak, I wish to remind you that they will speak through a live link-up from ten nations in the five continents. Meditations will be held from Rome, from the Seat of the Congregation for the Clergy, by Professor Jean Galot, by Professor Bruno Forte, by Professor Antonio Miralles and by Professor Paolo Scarafoni.

There will also be speeches from Manila by Professor José Vidamor Yu; from Taiwan by Professor Louis Aldrich; from Johannesburg by Professor Graham Rose; from Bogotà by Professor Silvio Cajiao; from Regensburg by H. E. Gerhard Ludwig Müller; from Sydney by H. E. Julian Porteous; from Madrid by Professor Alfonso Carrasco Rouco and from Moscow by Professor Ivan Kovalevsky.

I hope you all enjoy the conference.