SW News: Ahead of the 2025 jubilee year, Pope Francis has created a new commission to prepare a catalog of all Christian martyrs. On Wednesday, July 5, the Holy Father issued a letter in which he announced the creation of the Commission for the New Martyrs-Witnesses of the Faith in the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. This will include other Catholics and other Christians who shed their blood for Christ in the last quarter of a century.

In the letter, Pope Francis said, “Martyrs in the Church are witnesses of the hope that comes from faith in Christ and incites true charity.” He added by saying hope keeps alive the profound conviction that good is stronger than evil as Jesus has conquered sin and death.

The pope said that martyrs are more numerous at this time than in the early centuries of the Church. “They are bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, lay people and families, who in the different countries of the world, with the gift of their lives, have offered the supreme proof of charity,” he said.

It was way back in 2000 that work began to collect information on Christian martyrs of all confessions and now the new commission will systematically codify all the names and details and will continue to do so in the future. It was the idea of Pope St John Paul II to make sure that the “legacy of the unknown soldiers of God’s great cause” is not lost.  All Christian martyrs were remembered on May 7, 2000, during a ceremony at the Colosseum in Rome. It was attended by the representatives of other Churches and ecclesial communities from across the globe. The Polish pontiff termed it the “ecumenism of blood”.

Pope Francis also made it clear that during the next jubilee, there will be a similar celebration. However, he made it clear that there was no intention to establish new criteria for the canonical ascertainment of martyrdom.