The African martyrs add another page to the martyrology–the
Church’s role of honor–an occasion both of mourning and of joy. This is a page
worthy in every way to be added to the annals of that Africa of earlier times
which we, living in this era and being people of little faith, never expected
to be repeated.
In earlier times there occurred those famous deeds, so
moving to the spirit, of the martyrs of Scilli, of Carthage and of that “white
robed army” of Utica commemorated by Saint Augustine and Prudentius; of the
martyrs of Egypt so highly praised by Saint John Chrysostom and of the martyrs
of the Vandal persecution. Who would have thought that in our days we should
have witnessed events as heroic and glorious?
Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors
and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and the greatest of all,
Augustine, that we would one day add the names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga
and Matthias Mulumba Lekemba and their twenty companions? Nor must we forget
those members of the Anglican Church who also died for the name of Christ.
These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only
the mind of man might be directed not toward persecutions and religious
conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilization!
Africa has been washed by the blood of these latest martyrs,
the first of this new age (and, God willing, let them be the last, although
such a holocaust is precious indeed). Africa is reborn free and independent.
The infamous crime by which these young men were put to
death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly
that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly
planted, to be handed down to posterirty. Symbolically, this crime also reveals
that a simple and rough way of life -enriched by many fine human qualities yet
enslaved by its own weakness and corruption–must give way to a more civilized
life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions
prevail. (Pope Paul VI, homily at the canonization of St Charles, 1963)
Father, You have made the blood of the martyrs the seed of Christians. May the witness of Saint Charles and his companions and their loyalty to Christ in the face of torture inspire countless men and women to live the Christian faith.