The Frontline is Everywhere Now

The Catholic Thing

By Robert Royal Anja Hoffmann, whom I met with last week in Vienna, is the director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC). In the English-speaking world, the word "observatory" is usually reserved for the science of astronomy. But elsewhere - as is the case for Vienna-based OIDAC and several similar organizations in other countries - it denotes a kind of permanent and systematic observer, an institution that watches very carefully, and reports about what's going on. And what OIDAC has observed lately should be shocking, not only to Christians concerned about fellow believers, but for all persons of good will who sense that the tolerant and pluralistic societies that we once inhabited in the West are swiftly slipping away. OIDAC has recorded noteworthy events, especially in Europe, the historic heartland of Christianity, that are occurring for a couple of reasons. First, as anyone even vaguely paying attention knows, the large influx of Muslims from Africa and the Middle East has brought the traditional Islamic antagonism towards Christians to the very heart of formerly Christian nations. For instance, we just "celebrated" the martyrdom in July of 2016, of Fr. Jacques Hamel, a French priest who was beheaded by two 19-year-old Muslims radicalized by ISIS propaganda. Fr. Hamel had a friendly relationship with the local imam who headed the regional Muslim council and it's unclear why the two teenagers decided to attack him in particular. He was in his eighties and formally retired, and just happened to be helping out that morning in a small parish in Normandy. But they attacked. Brutally decapitating him. They broke in as he was saying Mass and took him hostage along with five others, two lay people and three religious sisters, some of whom were also wounded. His last words were reported to be Va-t'en, Satan! "Go away, Satan." Pope Francis immediately proclaimed him "a martyr of Christ, on the altar. . . .He was beheaded on the Cross, as he was celebrating the sacrifice of Christ's cross [the Mass]." The pope also gave instructions that pictures of Hamel were to be put up in public places. Aid to the Church in Need USA has asked me to write a book about the Catholic martyrs of the 21st century, specifically because the Vatican is planning an event in May 2025 to remember them as part of the celebrations of the Jubilee Year. Which is why I've been meeting with Anja Hoffmann and others. I'm already deep into it and appreciating the courage of the many Catholics and other Christians who face persecution and violent death every day, all over the world - and yet carry on. But as the case of Fr. Hamel shows, martyrdom has taken on some different forms in current conditions. I did a similar book on martyrs in 2000 and gave a copy to Pope John Paul II that year for the commemorations he promoted of all the Christian martyrs of the 20th century at the Colosseum. Even back then, the pope felt the need to circulate the notion of the nuovi martiri, the "new martyrs" who die for the Faith - but in different ways than we're familiar with in the past. For example, priests and Catholic secular officials have been targeted in many places if they seek to protect their peoples from national and international criminal networks. They've been murdered in Sicily and Mexico, Colombia and many more countries for their activities in trying to foster the rule of law and peace within their communities - which they consider part of their vocation as Catholics. Noble deaths, to be sure, and - in John Paul II's understanding - the kind of thing that has given us "new martyrs." The vast majority of Catholic martyrs in the twentieth century were victims of totalitarian regimes - fascists, Nazis, but above all Communists of various stripes. The slaughters by Marxists seem to have escaped the notice of the many young people today who flirt, and more than flirt, with Marxism and socialism. Those state-sponsored ...