Evidence for the Existence of God from Experience, Part 7: Martyrdom

In all of human experience there is perhaps nothing so sublime or profound as the witness of one who is willing to sacrifice his or her life for the sake of the other, and for the sake of the Other Who is God. “Greater love has no man,” St. Paul said, “than to give his life that another might live.” To give one’s life for the sake of another, or to give one’s life for the sake of the Other Who is the great mystery of life, is to witness to a faith and a hope that cannot be explained with words, for words are inadequate to express a love so pure and total. For this, it is actions that must speak. Being the sort of “living mystery” of which Cardinal Suhard spoke, living a life that does not make sense if there is no God, is the purview of the mystic. The martyrs of the faith are those whose deaths do not make sense unless God exists. They came to realize that, without God, nothing makes sense. Rather than give Him up, they willingly gave up all else.

Lucy Yi Zhenmei

Lucy Yi Zhenmei, born on December 9, 1815, was the youngest member of her family. She grew up a pious girl in Sichuan, China, so much so that, at the age of twelve, she made a commitment to live a life of chastity. She loved school and loved to read. After recovering from a serious illness at the age of twenty, she took her spirituality even more seriously, devoting herself to a rigorous life of prayer. She also spent much of her time at the spinning wheel her mother had taught her how to use, and in teaching the faith to the children of her local parish, eventually being asked by her pastor to teach catechism at the school in Mianyang. When her brother, a physician, moved his practice to Chongquing, Lucy and their mother followed, and Lucy taught religion to the women of the parish, refusing the small stipend that came with the position. She continued her work as a lay catechist over the next few years.

In 1862, Lucy accompanied Fr. Wen Nair to Jiashanlong to open a mission. At this time, the administrator of the Guizhou Province, Tian Xingshu, began a campaign against Christians, with the support of the local magistrate. Fr. Wen was arrested, along with three of his co-workers. They were imprisoned and sentenced to death without a formal trial. On Febraury 18, 1862, as the procession toward their execution made its way down the road, they came upon Lucy. She could have run. She could have denied any knowledge of the men, their work for the mission or the faith, but she didn’t. She was quickly identified as a Christian and co-worker of Fr. Wen’s, and immediately arrested. The next day she, too, was given a show trial, convicted of refusing to renounce her Christian faith, and sentenced to death. Lucy Yi ZhenMei was beheaded at noon the next day, February 19, 1862. Pope St. John Paul the Great canonized Lucy, Fr. Wen and the numerous Martyrs of China on October 1, 2000.

Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe and the Ugandan Martyrs

Mukasa Balikuddembe (a title which means, “peacemaker”) was born in 1860 in the kingdom of Buganda, the southern half of today’s Uganda, on the shores of Lake Victoria. The scion of a wealthy family, he came to the service of his king, Mutesa, as one of his pages. Mukasa’s service was impeccable, and he soon rose in the ranks, becoming one of the personal servants of the king. When the Missionaries of Africa (the White Fathers) arrived in Uganda in 1879, Mukasa was enrolled as a catechumen. He was baptized on April 30, 1882 by Fr. Simon Lourdel, and given the Christian name Joseph. For security reasons, the White Fathers were compelled to abandon their Bugandan missions for a few years, and Joseph Mukasa filled the void, becaming the titular head of the Catholic community at the king’s court, in charge of the religious instruction and moral protection of the royal pages.

King Mutesa died in 1884 and was succeeded by his son, Mwanga. Mwanga promoted Joseph Mukasa to major-domo in his household and gave to him the privilege of reproofing the king if Joseph felt he was going wrong on any matter. It soon became necessary to assume this role, for Mwanga was not the king his father had been. While Joseph Mukasa was instrumental in exposing a plot to kill the king in 1885, he also rebuked the king for use of his pagan charms, and earned the king’s wrath by protecting the royal pages from Mwanga’s homosexual desires and by opening catechism classes at the royal court.

Mwanga became increasingly agitated against the Christians in his kingdom, fearing they were being manipulated by European missionaries to undermine his power. In 1885, James Hannington, an Anglican bishop, was traveling through Buganda. Mwanga vowed to kill him. Joseph Mukasa advised against it, but Mwanga ignored him and arranged the bishop’s murder. Mwanga’s anger and paranoia toward the Christians only increased after this. When a medication Fr. Lourdel administered to Mwanga caused an adverse side effect, Mwanga used it as an excuse to accuse the Christians of attempting to assassinate him. He called Joseph Mukasa to his chamber and, in an all-night interview, ranted against his major-domo for his lack of loyalty, for his rebuking the king for killing Hannington, and for his protecting the royal pages from the king’s sexual desires. The next day, after receiving Holy Communion at Mass from Fr. Lourdel, Joseph Mukasa was again called before the king and condemned to death. Joseph Mukasa was taken to a site near the Nakivubo River, where he was stabbed to death and his body burned on a pyre. Before his martyrdom, Jospeh Mukasa forgave the king for his unjust death.

Lwanga, chief page to the king at the time, assumed the role of major-domo after Joseph Mukasa’s death. On the same day he became major-domo, Lwanga was baptized a Catholic and given the Christian name Charles. Only a year later, Mwanga ordered an assembly of all his court. Two of his pages were charged for crimes against the king and sentenced to death. The next morning, Charles Lwanga secretly baptized all of the pages under his charge. Later the same day, Mwanga called another assembly of his court and demanded that any present who claimed to be Christian renounce their faith. Led by Charles Lwanga, the royal pages announced their faithfulness to Christ. The king immediately condemned them to death. All told, thirteen Catholic men and nine Anglicans were martyred by the king’s order.

In 1964, Pope Bl. Paul VI canonized Joseph Mukasa, Charles Lwanga, and the Ugandan Martyrs. While not being able to canonize them, Paul VI recognized and honored the Anglicans who had also given their lives for Christ.

Franz Jagerstatter

Franz Jagerstatter was born in 1907 in St. Radegund, Upper Austria, to a single mother. His birth father was killed during World War I, and his mother, Rosalia, married Heinrich Jagerstatter in 1917. Jagerstatter adopted young Franz and gave him his surname.

By all accounts, Jagerstatter was a mischievous youth and the first in his village to own a motorcycle. He grew to become a devout Catholic man, a daily communicant and faithful husband and father. As sexton of his small farming village’s parish, he was known to refuse the customary stipend for funerals, preferring to offer up his service as a spiritual work of mercy. He was not overly pious, but he was devout and continued to deepen his faith over his adult years.

Franz became agitated with the rise of National Socialism in Austria during the 1930s. He was dismayed by the willingness of his fellow Catholics to vote for the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. Indeed, Franz was the only one in his village to vote in opposition. His friends and confreres were willing to fight for Hitler, justifying their decision because the Nazis fought the atheist Bolsheviks. Franz was not convinced. After being called up in June, 1940, Franz completed basic training, but the mayor of his town was able to secure a deferment from active service, allowing Franz to return to his farm. After more reflection over the months, Franz became convinced that he could not fight for Hitler. At some point, he had had a dream where he saw a train carrying people to hell. He understood the train to represent National Socialism, and that the Nazis were enemies of Christ and His Church. He vowed that, should he ever be called up for active service, he would refuse.

Franz was called to active service in March, 1943. He reported to the military authorities at Enns but, according to the written summary of the judgment of the Reich Court-Martial, dated July 6, 1943, immediately informed them that, “due to his religious views, he refused to perform military service with a weapon, that he would be acting against his religious conscience were he to fight for the Nazi State … that he could not be both a Nazi and a Catholic … that there were some things in which one must obey God more than men; due to the commandment, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’, he said he could not fight with a weapon. However, he was willing to serve as a military paramedic.”

A priest from his village attempted to change Franz’s mind, but failed. Franz was first taken to a military prison in Linz, where he suffered torture. After two months, he was transferred to the military prison in Berlin-Tegel. Once again, he offered to serve as a paramedic, but was denied. On July 6, 1943, Franz was condemned to death. Franz received much comfort when he learned from a priest friend who ministered to him of Fr. Franz Reinisch, a Pallottine priest, who had been executed for refusing military service to the Nazis for the same reason Franz did.

On August 9, 1943, Franz was taken to Brandenburg/Havel and executed by guillotine. Earlier that day, Franz had written, “If I must write … with my hands in chains, I find that much better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his free will. God gives so much strength that it is possible to bear any suffering … People worry about the obligations of conscience as they concern my wife and children. But I cannot believe that, just because one has a wife and children, a man is free to offend God.”

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI, a German pope whose family had suffered at the hands of the Nazis and who had himself abandoned the Nazi army during World War II, issued an apostolic exhortation declaring Franz a martyr. Franz Jagerstatter was beatified at the cathedral in Linz, Austria. His wife, Franzisca, who was the only one in his village to support him, attended the beatification Mass at the age of 94.

Gianna Molla

Gianna Molla was not a typical martyr. It was never demanded of her that she renounce her faith in Christ. Rather, her faith in Christ required of her a choice: either faithfulness in the face of possible death, or saving herself at the cost of her child’s life. For Gianna, there was only one choice. She gave her own life for the sake of her child.

Gianna Molla was a wife, mother and pediatrician with a practice in Mesero, Italy. In 1961, she became pregnant with her fourth child. However, during the second month of her pregnancy, Gianna and her husband, Pietro, learned that a fibroma had developed on Gianna’s uterus. The doctors gave them three options: a direct abortion, a full hysterectomy, or the removal of the fibroma alone. Their Catholic faith ruled out a direct abortion. A hysterectomy would have been a moral option according to the Catholic moral principal of double effect, where a justifiably serious condition allowed for the removal of a woman’s uterus in order to save her life, with the undesired and indirect consequence being the death of the child.

However, concerned only for the life of her unborn child, Gianna instructed the doctors to remove the fibroma alone. After the operation, complications developed over the remaining months of Gianna’s pregnancy. Throughout it all, she was clear to her husband and doctors: “If you must choose between me and the baby, no hesitation; choose – and I demand it – the baby. Save the baby!”

On the day before Easter Sunday, April 21, 1962, Gianna gave birth via Caesarean section to her fourth child and third daughter, Gianna Emanuela. Sadly, Gianna suffered a raging infection after the C-section and died seven days later of septic peritonitis.

The Lord said through His prophet, Isaiah, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:15). The example of Gianna Molla, who sacrificed her own life for the sake of her unborn child, speaks to a culture where children are too often forgotten, and there is little tenderness for the child in the womb. Children have become commodities, secured only when the time is supposedly right, and then only on terms their parents are willing to accept. In this climate, Pope St. John Paul the Great, who canonized Gianna in 2004, spoke of her as, “a simple, but more than ever, significant messenger of divine love.” As of this writing, Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla works as a geriatrician in Milan, Italy.

Ragheed Aziz Ganni and Shahbaz Bhatti

The first years of the 21^st century have been marked by increased violence committed by radical Islamists against those who don’t share their ideology and refuse to bend to their demands. The great majority of their victims have been their own Muslim confreres who are regarded as insufficiently pure in their faith or in their commitment to jihad against the “infidels.” Christians are also targeted. “Convert or die!” is their demand. Those who refuse are left with few options. Either they flee their homelands, which they have occupied for generations and even centuries, or live under the constant threat of persecution or death.

A Chaldean Catholic priest, Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni served the community of Holy Spirit Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq. On June 3, 2007 (Trinity Sunday that year), Fr. Ganni was walking in front of the church just as he had finished presiding over the evening Divine Liturgy. He was accompanied by three subdeacons, Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed. They were soon confronted by a group of armed men. One of the men screamed at Fr. Ganni that the priest had been told to close the church. Why had he not done so? Fr. Ganni replied, “How can I close the house of God?” At that, the armed men demanded that Fr. Ganni and his companions convert to Islam. When they refused, they were immediately shot and killed.

Shahbaz Bhatti was the only Christian member of the Pakistan National Assembly, where he served from 2008 until his assassination in 2011. He served as Federal Minister for Minority Affairs and, in this position, offered considerable support to religious minorities in his country, including spearheading the National Interfaith Consultation in July, 2010, which gathered religious leaders from all over Pakistan to issue a joint statement opposing terrorism.

Bhatti was an outspoken opponent of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which put religious minorities under risk of arrest and even death should they be accused of offending the Muslim majority. Bhatti also made enemies with his support of Pakistani Christians who had been attacked during the 2009 riots in the Punjab Province, and of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian and mother who was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy against Islam. Bhatti knew he was under risk and even made a video to be released in the event of his death, where he proclaimed, “I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his life for us, and I am ready to die for a cause. I’m living for my community … and I will die to defend their rights.”

On March 2, 2011, Bhatti was on his way to work after having visited his mother. He was alone, except for his driver. As armed men approached his car, the driver stopped and ducked. Bhatti’s car was sprayed with bullets, and he was shot multiple times. Taken immediately to a hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival. The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for Bhatti’s assassination, identifying him as a “blasphemer.” As of this writing, no one has been arrested and the authorities have made no clear determination of who is responsible for Bhatti’s murder.

The word “martyr” comes to us from the Greek, meaning “witness”. St. Stephen, whose story is told in the Acts of the Apostles, is regarded as the first martyr. In the first centuries after Christ, there were a handful of persecutions conducted by the authorities of the Roman Empire over the three hundred years until Christianity was recognized by Constantine in AD 313. The early Christians had plenty of witnesses who gave all in devotion to the faith. The list of martyrs through the centuries has only lengthened, and the twentieth century saw no slackening in their numbers. Some have claimed, in fact, that the just past century was “the century of martyrs,” where more died in the name of Christ than in any other single hundred-year span. Whether this particular claim can ever be verified is doubtful. The fact remains, even still, that to this very day there are men and women, and even children, who have been asked to pay the ultimate price in their devotion to the faith, and many did not falter.

Atheists will hardly regard this as evidence for the existence of God. Perhaps evidence for a “martyr’s complex” among those who valued their place in history over the opportunity to continue making history. A fool’s bargain, they’ll say. It seems, though, that the claim of atheism in the face of martyrdom, as in the case of sanctity, transformed lives, religious experience and, ultimately, faith itself, relies a great deal on the assumption of mass hysteria, religious delusion, passions gone too far and, if it’s not too much to say, outright insanity on the part of a great swath of the human community.

Yes, others have suffered horrible delusions that led to tragic consequences: Jonestown, Waco, Heaven’s Gate. Yet, these cases were isolated. When the leader demanded their lives, they died, and there was no one to carry on their mission. The cult died with them. In regards to Christianity, and the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, the exact opposite has been the case. In writing to the Roman governor in AD 197, Tertullian said, “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.” The blood of Christians is the seed of the faith! As Christians were persecuted and martyred, their numbers increased, as these men and women served as true witnesses to the existence of God, to His loving mercy, and to His promise of eternal joy in His kingdom. Many, seeing the sacrifice of the martyrs, have been convinced that only a grace that is true, only a promise that is true, only a God that is real and present could give so many witnesses over the course of so many centuries the courage and fortitude to sacrifice all for His sake.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.