What Is a Martyr? And Is Charlie Kirk One?

National Catholic Register, 24 September 2025

Charlie Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination has revived the debate over martyrdom.

At the massive memorial held for Charlie Kirk, he was declared a martyr several times. Notably, Vice President JD Vance called Kirk a “martyr for the Christian faith,” while President Donald Trump spoke of him as a “martyr for America’s freedom.”

Coming just a week after Pope Leo XIV presided at an ecumenical service in commemoration of the 21st-century martyrs in Rome, Kirk’s consideration as a martyr echoes Catholic debates in the 20th century over what constitutes martyrdom, as the traditional category was expanded and the sheer number of martyrs greatly increased.

The classic definition of a martyr is one who is violently killed in hatred of the faith (odium fidei) and willingly accepts that death instead of infidelity. Martyrdom thus includes both the intention of the killer, as well as the disposition of the one killed. For example, assassinated American presidents are not considered religious martyrs, as hatred of the faith was not the motivating factor for their killers.

A critical factor in considering Kirk’s case would be the motivation of his killer. While there has been some reporting on that to date, it is still not entirely known with certainty. While Kirk’s Christian faith was important to him, and he spoke of it openly, it may not have been the reason he was killed. It is possible to be a political martyr who is also a devout Christian without being, strictly speaking, a “martyr for the Christian faith.”

The 20th century included the cases of many who were killed not for their faith per se, but because of what they did, which was the fruit of their faith. The century opened with one of the most prominent of them, St. Maria Goretti. She was killed by a fellow Catholic who had no anti-religious motive at all. When young Maria resisted his sexual advances, he stabbed her in a rage.

She was canonized as a martyr in 1950, not for defending the Catholic faith, but because she was killed for her heroic adherence to Christian teaching on chastity. The category of martyrdom was thus practically expanded to include those who refused something contrary to the faith, even if the faith itself was not being attacked.

World War II brought martyrs who made a positive choice, rooted in their faith, that risked death. St. Maximilian Kolbe is the most famous of them, as he offered to take the place of another man condemned to the starvation bunker at Auschwitz.

During the same war, the nine members of the Ulma family were killed for sheltering Jews, a heroic risk they took out of obedience to their understanding of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Both Father Kolbe and the Ulmas lived heroic charity in the face of lethal consequences.

Father Kolbe’s case was much in dispute. He was beatified by Pope St. Paul VI in 1971, but not as a martyr, though the Holy Father was pleased to call him, informally, a “martyr of charity.”

Pope St. John Paul II, when it came time for Father Kolbe’s canonization in 1982, appointed a special commission to consider the case. The commission concluded that the Conventual Franciscan friar, admirable though he was, was not a martyr. John Paul overruled the commission, declaring at the canonization that henceforth, Kolbe would “be venerated also as a Martyr!”

The Ulma family was beatified as martyrs in 2021. Nearly 40 years after St. Maximilian’s canonization, there was no dispute about considering them such.

Thus, a new category of “also as” martyrs was inaugurated.

St. Óscar Romero’s assassins were likely baptized and had no particular hatred for the Catholic faith. They saw in the archbishop a powerful advocate for justice, a voice crying out against their death squads. He was an obstacle to their violent rule, “also as” the consequence of his duty as a Christian pastor.

Ten days ago, at the commemoration of the 21st-century martyrs and witnesses to the faith, Pope Leo spoke of the “evangelical fortitude” of Sister Dorothy Stang, an American religious Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who spent three decades in the Amazon, defending the welfare of the landless poor, opposing the ranchers who wished to convert the rainforest to grazing pastures. She was killed by agents of those ranchers — perhaps fellow Catholics — who were not disputing doctrinal questions. Sister Dorothy has not been declared a martyr formally, but her case belongs alongside those, for example, who were killed by the private violence of the Mafia. One such, the Italian Judge Rosario Livatino, was beatified as a martyr in 2021, a victim of a Mafia hitman.

“They are women and men, religious, laypeople and priests, who pay with their lives for their fidelity to the Gospel, their commitment to justice, their battle for religious freedom where it is still being violated, and their solidarity with the most disadvantaged,” said Pope Leo. They are honored as holy men and women, and “also as” advocates of justice, defenders of religious freedom, exemplars of the corporal works of mercy.

All of that helps to clarify the issues in the case of Charlie Kirk. He died a dramatic death, slain while exercising his public work, very much in the public eye. What might he be a martyr for?

The easiest classification to argue for is that he is a political martyr for the Trump agenda, a martyr for MAGA. At the event at which he was killed, he was distributing Trump hats; in his studio, he had two portraits of the president; he was a relentless advocate for Trump, rarely, if ever, blanching from even the president’s more outrageous claims. If the killer was motivated by anti-Trump animus, clearly Kirk would be a target.

The memorial in Phoenix had two dominant themes: one political, advanced by the long parade of administration officials, and the other Christian, presented by his widow, a Catholic, and the worship leaders. Vance pointed out that “our whole administration” was present, and the principal speakers were mostly Trump officials, including several cabinet secretaries, akin to a party convention.

The most moving moment of the memorial was Kirk’s widow, Erika, offering forgiveness to her husband’s assassin, specifically because Jesus had prayed for forgiveness for those who were crucifying him. It was a moment of profound Christian witness, a moment of great emotion and evangelical fortitude.

“The answer to hate is not hate,” Mrs. Kirk said.

Drawing a sharp distinction between the Gospel and his MAGA ethos, Trump offered a rebuttal of sorts to the widow at her husband’s memorial, stating that, unlike the Kirks, he did in fact hate his opponents. So it would seem that, while it is possible to be a martyr for MAGA, to the extent that Kirk was, it would weaken the claim to be considered “also as” a martyr for the Christian faith.

Trump offered his own consideration of Kirk as a “martyr of America’s freedom,” which is a stronger claim. That kind of civic martyrdom emphasizes Kirk’s commitment to foundational principles of liberal democracy, specifically freedom of speech and open exchange, as well as to a certain view of civic renewal.

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