Martyr of charity
In the Catholic Church, a martyr of charity is someone who dies as a result of a charitable act or of administering Christian charity. While a martyr of the faith, which is what is usually meant by the word "martyr", dies through being persecuted for being a Catholic or for being a Christian, a martyr of charity dies through practicing charity motivated by Christianity. This is an unofficial form of martyrdom; when Pope Paul VI beatified Maximilian Kolbe he gave him that honorary title.
List of martyrs of charity
- Lawrence of Rome, 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, 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.
- 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
- 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 Paiter people of the Rondônia area.
- Cassandra Martyrs of Charity, a group of religious nuns and priests who died in 1983 while saving victims in a shipwreck in the Philippines.