Case LXVI: Do Christians Become Martyrs by Dying in the Voluntary Service of Plague-Stricken Patients?

This theological question occasionally gains new interest. St. ALPHONSUS gives the brief answer (I, VI, n. 100): “Concerning those who die from charity in the service of plague victims, the Roman Martyrology says on February 28: ‘Whom religious faith has been accustomed to venerate as martyrs.’ And twelve academies, thirteen cardinals, and more than three hundred authors, against Hurtado and others, hold that they are true martyrs.” Thus St. Alphonsus. The learned P. Gobat, S.J., died 1679, speaks in his work on Moral Theology (Tom. 1, Tract VI, Casus V) of the plague which in the year 1611 fearfully devastated the city and environs of Constance, and of the zeal with which the Jesuits upon this occasion devoted their services to the plague-stricken.

There he refers to a work, termed a “Golden Book,” in which, as he sets forth, is proved on many authoritative and reasonable grounds that all victims of Christian charity, Victimae Charitiatis, as he calls them, who perish in the voluntary spiritual or corporal care of the plague stricken, are Christian martyrs, if not in the strictest, yet in the real and true sense of the word, “martyrs, not indeed in the most rigorous sense, but nevertheless in the true and proper sense.” The Congregation of the Index had, so GOBAT informs us, permitted the publication of this work with the qualification: provided it were added that these matters had been argued by him only as probable. In connection with this opinion GOBAT then puts the question whether such martyrdom in the service of plague-stricken secures the privilege accorded to the bloody martyrdom according to a probable opinion—to which is opposed one likewise probable, the privilege, that it, similar to the Baptism with water of adults, effects justification cum sola attritione, without perfect contrition, “facere ex attrito contritum.”

After contemplating the question the author does not venture to answer it affirmatively. Practically this question is not of importance, as such a sacrifice for charity’s sake without an act of perfect contrition is hardly conceivable.

Of more recent theologians Dr. Oswald, in his treatise upon Baptism, says: “The violent death suffered for Christ’s sake, constitutes the idea of martyrdom; for, whatever some theologians may observe to the contrary, the death of a priest incurred by spiritual care of plague-stricken suffices not for the glorious title of a Christian martyr.”

Very wisely St. ALPHONSUS prefaces his answer to our question with the velut martyres of the Roman Martyrology, in order to adjudge on the one hand a very special merit to the heroic sacrifice of life in works of charity to the plague-stricken, without on the other hand granting them the full title of martyrdom. In this sense our question has also been answered by St. CHARLES BORROMEO, and his Christian contemporaries, during the plague then raging in Milan. J. P. Giussano, the saint’s biographer, contemporary, private secretary and faithful assistant, relates, in the fourth book of the saintly cardinal’s life, of priests who at that time cared for the spiritual needs of the plague-stricken: “Many of these priests fell victims to the plague, in particular some Jesuits and Barnabites, and ten Capuchins, all of whom may be compared to those holy priests and deacons, who, in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, in Rome, met death in caring for the plague-stricken, and concerning whom the Roman Martyrology, under date of February 28, speaks as follows: ‘At Rome, the commemoration of the holy Priests, Deacons, and very many others who, in the time of the Emperor Valerian, when a most savage plague was raging, most willingly met death while ministering to those suffering from the disease, whom the religious faith of the pious has been accustomed to venerate as martyrs.’ ”

P. JOHANN SCHWIENBACHER, C.SS.R.