The Lord predicted it. Not as a soothsayer, but as one well-acquainted with human nature, and how often we resist messages uncomfortable to us and threatening to our lifestyle.
275. Our communities bear the stamp of the apostles, and they also recognize the Christian testimony of so many men and women who sowed the seeds of the Gospel in our lands, even spilling their blood as martyrs. Their example of life and holiness constitutes a precious gift for the believing journey of Latin Americans, and at the same time, a stimulus for imitating their virtues in new cultural expressions in history. With the passion of their love for Jesus Christ, they have been active members and missionaries in their ecclesial community. They have courageously persevered in promoting people’s rights, they were clear-sighted in critically discerning reality in the light of the church’s social teaching and credible through the coherent testimony of their lives. We contemporary Christians draw on their legacy and we feel called to continue with renewed apostolic and missionary zeal the evangelical style of life that they have transmitted on to us.
Some Latin American martyrs leave some of us nervous. The Church hasn’t always sided with the virtuous, and our members have occasionally through in their lot with the corrupt. What believers look too is the life witness of martyrs. We know too well that the innocent often are killed unjustly. But it takes an extraordinary person infused with extraordinary grace to persist in the mission of Christ to willingly go forward knowing of plots against them.
For deeper examination, an English translation of the 2007 document from the Aparecida Conference.
