Opening the Fifth Seal: Catholic Martyrs and Forces of Religious Competition
Opening the fifth seal: Catholic martyrs and forces of religious competition Robert J. Barro Harvard University, American Enterprise Institute Rachel M. McCleary Harvard University, American Enterprise Institute AEI Economics Working Paper 2020-01 March 2020 © 2020 by Rachel M. McCleary and Robert J. Barro. All rights reserved. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) educational organization and does not take institutional positions on any issues. The views expressed here are those of the author(s). Opening the Fifth Seal Catholic Martyrs and Forces of Religious Competition Rachel M. McCleary and Robert J. Barro Jorge Mario Bergoglio, since becoming Pope Francis in March 2013, is focusing on martyrdom in the Roman Catholic Church. Two months into his pontificate, Francis canonized the 813 martyrs of Otranto, the largest such group in recorded Catholic Church history. Five months later, Francis beatified another large group, 499 martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. Francis continues to emphasize martyrs over confessors, the name given to blessed persons who died of natural causes. In 2019, Francis beatified 39 martyrs and only 6 confessors. As a snapshot of what is happening, within the last four years, 14 persons who died in Guatemala have qualified as blessed martyrs; six were foreign missionaries who served in Guatemala and eight were national lay persons, including one child.1 The missionaries were Oklahoma priest Stanley Rother, the first U.S. born martyr beatified by the Catholic Church, three Missionaries of the Sacred Heart priests, a priest of the Order of Friars Minor, and James Miller, of the De La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools and the last Vatican beatification for 2019.
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