Martyr of charity

In the Catholic church, a martyr of charity is someone who dies as a result of administering Christian charity. While a martyr of the faith dies through being persecuted for being a Catholic or for being a Christian, a martyr of charity dies through practising charity motivated by Christianity.^[1] This is a form of martyrdom recognised for canonization since Pope John Paul II's canonization of Maximilian Kolbe in 1982.^[2] Earlier martyrs of charity who were canonized were recognized as Confessor of the Faith rather than martyrs.

List of martyrs of charity

• Lawrence of Rome,^[3] executed in the Diocletianic persecution after distributing church valuables among the poor instead of to the Emperor.
• Father Damien, contracted leprosy from his patients at Kalaupapa; canonized in 2009
• Maximilian Kolbe,^[2][4] volunteered for fatal collective punishment in Auschwitz; canonized in 1982
• Everard Mercurian, died ministering in an influenza epidemic in 1580.
• Edward Metcalfe, died ministering in an epidemic in Leeds in 1847.^[5]
• Benjamin Petit, died travelling as a missionary to the Potawatomi in 1839
• Bernardo Tolomei, died ministering in a plague epidemic in 1348; canonized in 2009^[6]
• Sára Salkaházi, executed for sheltering Jews from the Holocaust; beatified in 2006
• Aloysius Gonzaga, died while ministering to victims of a plague in Rome in 1591. Canonized in 1726.
• Ezechiele Ramin, died in 1985 while defending the rights of the farmers and the Suruí natives of the Rondônia area (Brazil).

References