Iqbal Masih ( Child Martyr )

Fr.William Tirry

William Tirry (1609 – May 12, 1654) was a martyred Irish Roman Catholic priest who was beatified by Pope John Paul II for his loyalty to the church.

Tirry was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1608, the nephew of the bishop of Cork-Cloyne. He joined the Augustinian Order in Cork and studied in Valladolid, Spain and Paris, France. Upon completion of his education in Paris, he spent five years (1636–1641) in Brussels, Belgium.

He returned to Ireland in 1641, and in 1649 was chosen as Prior (local superior) of the Augustinian house in Skreen. This was the same year that marked the beginning of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. A law was enacted on January 6, 1653 declaring that any Roman Catholic priest in Ireland was guilty of treason. Tirry was forced into hiding alongside other priests, but was captured when three men reported his whereabouts for money.

William was imprisoned at Clonmel and refused to adopt the Protestant religion. He was executed by hanging on May 12, 1654. An account told by a friar who had been tried with William supplies some details of the day: "William, wearing his Augustinian habit, was led to the gallows praying the rosary. He blessed the crowd which had gathered, pardoned his betrayers and affirmed his faith. It was a moving moment for Catholics and Protestants alike''

The 25 Mexican Martyrs

In the 20th Century, our neighbors to the South risked Martyrdom rather than give into the demands of the Masonic government
to become a State church. Priests were outlawed, and if found tortured and martyred; Bishops were exiled as non-persons
because they refused to reject the Papacy and give allegiance to the State. Although these Priest-Martyrs knew to
remain in Mexico meant a sure Martyrdom, they chose death, so that while they were able they could bring the
Sacraments to the faithful. These are true stories taken where the Martyrs lived and died for the Faith.

Fr.Maximilian Kolbe

Maximilian Kolbe (January 8, 1894–August 14, 1941), also known as Maksymilian or Massimiliano Maria Kolbe and “Apostle of Consecration to Mary,” born as Rajmund Kolbe, was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

Father Ragheed Ganni

ROMA, June 5, 2007 – They killed him on the Sunday after Pentecost, after he had celebrated Mass in his parish church, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, in Mosul.

They killed Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, together with three subdeacons who were with him – Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed. The assailants led Bidawed’s wife away, and struck down the four men in cold blood. Then they placed vehicles loaded with explosives around their corpses, so that no one would dare to approach them. It was late in the evening before the police in Mosul were able to defuse the explosives and collect the bodies.

The Chaldean Church immediately mourned for them as martyrs. Benedict XVI prayed for them from Rome. Father Ragheed was one of the most limpid and courageous witnesses of the Christian life in a country among the most afflicted.

He was born in Mosul 35 years ago. After graduating from the local university with an engineering degree in 1993, from 1996 to 2003 he studied theology in Rome at the Angelicum, the Pontifical Saint Thomas Aquinas University, pursuing a license in ecumenical theology. Apart from Arabic, he spoke fluent Italian, French, and English. He was a correspondent for the international agency “Asia News,” of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.

Hear the voice of a Christian Martyr singing a hymn in Arabic to the Blessed Mother, while watching a slideshow of his funeral mass. Hear the angelic voice of Father Ragheed Ganni

Archbishop Oscar Romero

As archbishop, he witnessed ongoing violations of human rights and started a group which spoke out on behalf of the poor and victims of the Salvadoran civil war. In many ways Romero was closely associated with Liberation Theology and he openly condemned both Marxism and Capitalism.[2] In 1980, he was assassinated by a right-wing group headed by former major Roberto D'Aubuisson as he finished giving his homily. This provoked an international outcry for reform in El Salvador. After his assassination, Romero was succeeded by Monsignor Arturo Rivera.

Romero was killed by a shot to the heart on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called "La Divina Providencia", one day after a sermon where he had called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights. According to an audio-recording of the Mass, he was shot while holding up the Eucharist. When he was shot, his blood spilled over the altar.

St.George the great martyr

The martyrdom of Saint George, by Paolo Veronese, 1564.It is likely that Saint George was born to a Christian noble family in Nicomedia, during the late third century between about 275 AD and 285 AD, and he died in Lydda, Palestine.His father, Geronzio (Latin Gerontius), was a Roman army official from Cappadocia and his mother was from Palestine. They were both Christians and from noble families of Anici, so by this the child was raised with Christian beliefs. They decided to call him George, meaning "worker of the land". At the age of 14, George lost his father; a few years later, George's mother, Policronia (Polychronia), died. Eastern accounts give the names of his parents as Anastasius and Theobaste.

Then George decided to go to Nicomedeia, the imperial city of that time, and present himself to Emperor Diocletian to apply for a career as a soldier. Diocletian welcomed him with open arms, as he had known his father, Geronzio—one of his finest soldiers. By his late 20s, George was promoted to the rank of Tribunus and stationed as an imperial guard of the Emperor at Nicomedeia.

In the year AD 302, Diocletian (influenced by Galerius) issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. But George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor and ruler. Diocletian was upset, not wanting to lose his best Tribune and the son of his best official, Geronzio. George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted.

Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself. After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on April 23, 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

St. Sebastian the martyr

The details of Sebastian's martyrdom were first elaborated by Ambrose of Milan, in his sermon (number XX) on Psalm 118. Ambrose stated that Sebastian came from Milan and that he was already venerated there in the fourth century.According to Sebastian's fifth-century Acta Sanctorum,[1] still attributed to Ambrose by the seventeenth-century hagiographer Jean Bolland, and the briefer account in Legenda Aurea, he was a man of Gallia Narbonensis who was taught in Milan and appointed as a captain of the Praetorian Guard under Diocletian and Maximian, who were unaware that he was a Christian.

Sebastian was reportedly known for having encouraged in their faith two Christian prisoners due for martyrdom, Mark and Marcellian, who were bewailed and entreated by their family to forswear Christ and offer token sacrifice. His aura cured a woman of her muteness, and the miracle instantly converted 78 persons.According to tradition, Mark and Marcellian were twin brothers and were deacons. They were from a distinguished family and were both married, living in Rome with their wives and children. The brothers refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods and were arrested. They were visited by their father and mother, Tranquillinus and Martia, in prison, who attempted to persuade them to renounce Christianity.

Sebastian ended up converting Tranquillinus and Martia, as well as Saint Tiburtius, the son of Chromatius, the local prefect. Nicostratus, another official, and his wife Zoe were also converted. According to the legend, Zoe had been a mute for 6 years. However, she made known to Sebastian her desire to be converted to Christianity. As soon as she had, her speech returned to her. Nicostratus then brought the rest of the prisoners; these 16 persons were also converted by Sebastian.Chromatius and Tiburtius became converts; Chromatius set all of his prisoners free from jail, resigned his position, and retired to the country in Campania. Mark and Marcellian, after being concealed by a Christian named Castulus, were later martyred, as were Nicostratus, Zoe, and Tiburtius.

Diocletian reproached Sebastian for his supposed betrayal, and "he commanded him to be led to the field and there to be bounden to a stake for to be shot at. And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin (hedgehog),"[4] leaving him there for dead. Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health. The other residents of the house doubted he was a Christian. One of those was a girl who was blind. Sebastian asked her "Do you wish to be with God?", and made the sign of the Cross on her head. "Yes," she replied, and immediately regained her sight. Sebastian then stood on a step and harangued Diocletian as he passed by; the emperor had him beaten to death and his body thrown in a privy. But in an apparition Sebastian told a Christian widow where they might find his body undefiled and bury it "at the catacombs by the apostles."

Roman Catholic Priest Shot Dead In Pakistan

A Roman catholic priest was shot and killed in eastern Pakistan early on Saturday, police said.

No one took immediate responsibility for the shooting death of Father George Ibrahim sometime after midnight in Ranala Kot, a small village about 300 km from Islamabad.

No arrests have been made. Gunmen broke into his home and shot him, police said.

Ibrahim had received several death threats, according to Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. The threats appeared linked to a school that had been returned to the Roman Catholic Church by the province.

"He wanted to denationalise the school, which had been the property of the church and when he got it back he received threats saying 'you will pay a price for the school," Bhatti said in a telephone interview.

It was not known who made the threats, but Bhatti feared it was extremist Muslim groups, who have been blamed for previous attacks against Christians in Pakistan.

Bhatti said that Pakistan's minority Christian community has been targeted by extremist groups since the 2001 start of the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan because Christians here are associated with the United States, which is seen as a mostly Christian country.

The killing comes less than 24 hours after suicide attackers massacred 44 Shiite Muslims in a mosque in southwestern Baluchistan province. Three suicide attackers also died in the attack.

American Nun Shot Dead In Amazon

A 74-year-old American nun was shot to death early on Saturday in Brazil's Amazon jungle, where she worked for decades to defend peasant farmers and the rain forest from illegal loggers and ranchers.

Two gunmen approached US missionary Dorothy Stang and shot her three times in the back at a settlement of landless peasants, 50 km from the town of Anapu in the state of Para, police and fellow religious workers said.

"She had no fear; this was her life, her fight," Ze Geraldo, a ruling Workers Party (PT) federal deputy, told Reuters by telephone after helping bring her body back to Anapu, where he said she would be buried, after an autopsy.

Having shot her in the back, a gunman fired a fourth shot to her head when she fell to the ground, then fled into the jungle, according to Mr Geraldo.

President Luiz Inacio Lula dispatched ministers and police teams to carry out a "rigorous" investigation.

"Two hired gunmen have now been identified and there are other people involved," Human Rights Minister Nilmario Miranda said in an interview on national television. He used the word "pistoleiro," used in Brazil to describe a contract killer.

Ms Stang's fellow missionaries had long feared such news.

"Sister Dorothy", as she was known, was originally from Ohio. She worked with peasant families to prevent them from fleeing illegal loggers and ranchers in the Trans-Amazonian highway region, some 700 km south-west of state capital of Belem.

She negotiated with hired gunmen to prevent attacks on settlements, frequently reported human rights abuses and taught locals how to use the forest in a sustainable way.

Brazil's government compared Stang's killing to that of legendary Amazon environmental activist Chico Mendes, who was gunned down in 1988 and became a martyr in the fight to protect the world's largest rain forest and its people.

Stang, who had lived in Brazil for more than three decades, recently won a human rights award from a Brazilian lawyers group. The state of Para named her woman of the year.

The 26 Japanese Martyrs

The shogunate and imperial government at first supported the Catholic mission and the missionaries, thinking that they would reduce the power of the Buddhist monks, and help trade with Spain and Portugal. However, the Shogunate was also wary of colonialism, seeing that in the Philippines the Spanish had taken power after converting the population. The government increasingly saw Roman Catholicism as a threat, and started persecuting Christians. A situation inflamed by their discovery that the Christian daimyo and Portuguese were engaging in the slave trading of Japanese women.[1] [2][dubious – discuss] Christianity was banned and those Japanese who refused to abandon their faith were killed.

On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians—six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys—were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki. These individuals were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears.

Persecution continued sporadically, breaking out again in 1613 and 1630. On September 10, 1632, 55 Christians were martyred in Nagasaki in what became known as the Great Genna Martyrdom. At this time Roman Catholicism was officially outlawed. The Church remained without clergy and theological teaching disintegrated until the arrival of Western missionaries in the nineteenth century.

While there were many more martyrs, the first martyrs came to be especially revered, the most celebrated of which was Paul Miki. The Martyrs of Japan were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church on June 8, 1862 by Blessed Pius IX and are listed on the calendar as Sts. Paul Miki and his Companions, commemorated on February 6. Originally this feast day was listed as Sts. Peter Baptist and Twenty-Five Companions, Martyrs, and commemorated on February 5.[3]
Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo's acclaimed novel Silence provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.

The Thirty Franciscan Martyrs of Široki Brijeg

Thousands of pilgrims visit the Franciscan Monastery in Široki Brijeg every year, about one hour distant from Međugorje (Medjugorje). On 7th February 1945 the Communist soldiers arrived and said “God is dead, there is no God, there is no Pope, there is no Church, there is no need of you, you also go out in the world and work.” The communists forgot that the Franciscans were working, most of the Franciscans were teaching in the adjoining school. Some of the Franciscans were famous professors and had written books. The communists asked them to remove their habits. The Franciscans refused. One angry soldier took the Crucifix and threw it on the floor. He said, “you can now choose either life or death.” Each of the Franciscans knelt down, embraced the Crucifix and said, “You are my God and my All.” The thirty Franciscans were taken out and slaughtered and their bodies burned in a nearby cave where their remains lay for many years. Today they are buried inside the Franciscan church. In our Gospel today Jesus said, “if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven.” The thirty Franciscan martyrs of Široki Brijeg are a powerful example of declaring oneself in the presence of others for Jesus. They lived something else Jesus also said in the Gospel, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”

Witnessing to Jesus and following God’s way helps others who are lacking courage to follow Jesus. One of the soldiers in the firing squad at Široki Brijeg later said, “Since I was a child, in my family, I had always heard from my mother that God exists. To the contrary, Stalin, Lenin, Tito had always asserted and taught each one of us: there is no God. God does not exist! But when I stood in front of the martyrs of Široki Brijeg and I saw how those friars faced death, praying and blessing their persecutors, asking God forgive the faults of their executioners, it was then that I recalled to my mind the words of my mother and I thought that my mother was right: God exists!” That soldier converted and now he has a son a priest and a daughter a nun. As I said, witnessing to Jesus and following God’s way also helps others in the crowd who are lacking the courage to follow Jesus.

Charles De Foucauld

CHARLES DE FOUCAULD (Brother Charles of Jesus) was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15th, 1858. Orphaned at the age of six, he and his sister Marie were raised by their grandfather in whose footsteps he followed by taking up a military career.
He lost his faith as an adolescent.His taste for easy living was well known to all and yet he showed that he could be strong willed and constant in difficult situations. He undertook a risky exploration of Morocco (1883-1884). Seeing the way Muslims expressed their faith questioned him and he began repeating, “My God, if you exist, let me come to know you.”
On his return to France, the warm, respectful welcome he received from his deeply Christian family made him continue his search. Under the guidance of Fr. Huvelin he rediscovered God in October 1886.He was then 28 years old. “As soon as I believed in God, I understood that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone.”

A pilgrimage to the Holy Land revealed his vocation to him: to follow Jesus in his life at Nazareth.He spent 7 years as a Trappist, first in France and then at Akbès in Syria. Later he began to lead a life of prayer and adoration, alone, near a convent of Poor Clares in Nazareth.
Ordained a priest at 43 (1901) he left for the Sahara, living at first in Beni Abbès and later at Tamanrasset among the Tuaregs of the Hoggar. He wanted to be among those who were, “the furthest removed, the most abandoned.” He wanted all who drew close to him to find in him a brother, “a universal brother.” In a great respect for the culture and faith of those among whom he lived, his desire was to “shout the Gospel with his life”. “I would like to be sufficiently good that people would say, “If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?”
On the evening of December 1st 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders who had encircled his house.

He had always dreamed of sharing his vocation with others: after having written several rules for religious life, he came to the conclusion that this “life of Nazareth” could be led by all. Today the “spiritual family of Charles de Foucauld” encompasses several associations of the faithful, religious communities and secular institutes for both lay people and priests.

St.Oliver Plunkett.

Oliver Plunkett was born in Loughcrew in County Meath, Ireland on November 1, 1625. In 1647, he went to study for the priesthood in the Irish College in Rome. On January 1, 1654, he was ordained a priest in the Propaganda College in Rome.
Due to religious persecution in his native land, it was not possible for him to return to minister to his people. Oliver taught in Rome until 1669, when he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. Archbishop Plunkett soon established himself as a man of peace and, with religious fervor, set about visiting his people, establishing schools, ordaining priests, and confirming thousands.
1673 brought a renewal of religious persecution, and bishops were banned by edict. Archbishop Plunkett went into hiding, suffering a great deal from cold and hunger. His many letters showed his determination not to abandon his people, but to remain a faithful shepherd. He thanked God "Who gave us the grace to suffer for the chair of Peter." The persecution eased a little and he was able to move more openly among his people. In 1679 he was arrested and falsely charged with treason. The government in power could not get him convicted at his trial in Dundalk. He was brought to London and was unable to defend himself because he was not given time to bring his own witnesses from Ireland. He was put on trial, and with the help of perjured witnesses, was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. With deep serenity of soul, he was prepared to die, calmly rebutting the charge of treason, refusing to save himself by giving false evidence against his brother bishops. Oliver Plunkett publicly forgave all those who were responsible for his death on July 1, 1681. On October 12, 1975, he was canonized a saint. His feast day is July 11.