Be sure to check out Sancte Pater for a moving entry about the Catholic pastoral workers and missionaries who were killed during the year of Our Lord 2009.
Fr. Z’s Podcasts RSS Feed
About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
- on ROME 24/4– Day 36 (-5): Sacristy secrets, music from nuns, and Fr. Z’s Kitchen (real “all’amatriciana”): “Dinner looks exceptional. Newfoundland has great history, you should go. Will be listening to the Sisters.”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “I’ve heard it said there are as many galaxies as grains of sand. Here is interesting facts about our Milky…”
- on ROME 24/4– Day 36 (-5): Sacristy secrets, music from nuns, and Fr. Z’s Kitchen (real “all’amatriciana”): “Thanks for the all’amatriciana”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Thanks Father Z, cosmology lesson as only you can impart.”
- on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “Hmmm. Those kind of tassels have always reminded me of fancy curtain tiebacks so I have avoided making them but…”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Fr.Z sez: …The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way and then become characters in Star Trek…. V’ger!! https://youtu.be/gxAaVqdz_Vk?t=96”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Being from Florida, I remember when both Voyagers launched – you could see them from our house. At that time,…”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Too bad the Curia has drifted too far from its power source…”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977, from Cape Canaveral. Voyager 1 launched from Cape Canaveral on 5 September 1977.…”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “I guess Voyager I gives new meaning to the poem High Flight. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of…”
- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Now this is very interesting. Not just looking up at some small dots of light overhead!”
- on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “The final resting place of Plato puts me in mind of a memorable excerpt I once read about Aristotle in…”
- on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “Someone pointed out the St. George’s Day Google Doodle with its background account to me – with one of the…”
- on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: ““George Farmer, aka Candace Owen’s husband. He is a revert” If I’m reading the interview correctly, first a convert, then…”
- on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Not to detract from anything Imrahill said, but well, the papally-attested infallible ordinary magisterium about a catholic truth, not the…”
ABORTION PILL RESCUE NETWORK
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
Polls
Loading ...Use FATHERZ10 at checkout for 10% off
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT comBe a “Zed-Head”!
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
GREAT causes to support
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Loading ...
May their souls and the souls of all the Faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and may Perpetual Light shine on them. may they rest in peace. Amen
Those who feel so inclined could have a Mass said for these martyrs.
These names and their stories should be taught to all Catholic children in whatever form of Catechesis they receive.
When I read these names, I wonder if one of the Sundays in Ordinary Time (say, for example, the last Sunday of October) could not be designated for All Martyrs of the Church who perished for Christ in the year previous.
A theological question: what qualifies one as a martyr?
If you read the Bios, many of these men were killed simply during robberies.
If you’re robbed for money but just so happen to be wearing clerics does that really make you a martyr?
Some might say they were killed “in the line of duty” maybe (especially if they were missionaries who willingly went into a dangerous area)…but is this really dying “for the faith”?
Also, it is interesting to note in the bios how many priests in Latin America are STILL exported from Spain, which some would take as saying something about neocolonialism.
Oneros said: “Some might say they were killed “in the line of duty” maybe (especially if they were missionaries who willingly went into a dangerous area)…but is this really dying “for the faith”?”
Of course it is dying for the faith. Priests and others who willingly offer themselves to give witness to the faith and are killed “in the line of duty” – what else are they but martyrs?
I am astonished that you would question that. What do you think their “line of duty is”?
Joan M
I think what Oneros meant ( he can correct me if I’m wrong) is that it appears that many of these cases seem to be a case of straight robbery + murder where the vicitim happened to be a priest/religous rather than a case of the murderers actively singling out the victim based on the fact that he/she was a Catholic (such as was the case witht the Roman Persecutions)
We are all called to be martyrs. We are called to defend our faith no matter what.
It is easy to defend when nobody persecutes us, but it is more difficult when society is against it, and we are facing criticism, or much worse (which may be the case for the martyrs listed).
Let us pray for all who are facing persecution against the faith.
Well, it does show that it’s not a safe, easy thing to do to be a missionary. Missionaries face, as did the early saints, threats of robbery and murder as well as the out-right anti-Christian persecution that we see in India today. Their courage and generosity are humbling for us individually and a glory of the Church. Indeed, their stories should be told to children as well as to the adult faithful … a nice counter-weight to the sex abuse scandal. I’m grateful for their lives. They risked all for Christ.
A large number of these appeared to have been killed by those who opposed their efforts for the poor. Some seem to have been just robberies, but when you look at the stories, so many of which involve many stabbings, one wonders if demonic hatred for the servants of God were not involved. Even if the murderers were just looking for money, I think seeing the pattern here we might wonder whether the evil one did not suggest to them these particular victims.
I don’t know if we can say that all are technically martyrs; if they were where they were because they were doing Christ’s work in what they knew was a dangerous place, which seems to be true of many of them, there is an argument for it.
But if a priest happened to be killed in my safe little hometown, I would say he was a murder victim but not a martyr, unless there were some reason to think he was killed because he was a priest.
Susan Peterson