20th Century Martyrs & Holy Men in the Papal Artifacts Collection

The Papal Artifacts’ Collection is primarily dedicated to artifacts connected to the papacy.  Individual popes, their biographies and multiple items belonging to them, including first and second class relics, make up the majority of this Collection.  But that isn’t all it is.

Father Kunst has a deep devotion to the saints as can be readily seen in viewing the Saints & Blesseds section of this site. We invite you to visit Papal History/Saints & Blesseds to view the many canonized and beatified men and women who make up this section of the Collection.

Another category is also included with this Collection: Notable Individuals.  These are people significantly associated with the Catholic Church who have not been canonized but contributed in outstanding ways to the church.

 We invite you to view these featured images and small glimpses into the lives of these important 20 century martyrs and several beatified and notable men whose lives of heroic opposition to the fascist and communist influences of their time make them gifts to our Church.  Pope Francis referred to Cardinal Ernest Simoni of Albania (still alive) as a, “living martyr.”

Perhaps that could be said of all of them.

Visit the Saints & Blesseds pages & the Notable Individuals pages for more information on each of these men.

We thank them for the gifts of their lives to our Church.

At 6.30 pm, on Monday  March 24, 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador was celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence hospital. A car pulled up outside, and a single gunman fired a single shot from the doorway straight into Oscar Romero’s heart. 

Moments earlier, the Archbishop had been speaking about how “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grain of wheat that dies…”. 

The Franciscan friar, Maximilian Mary Kolbe, died in the Auschwitz concentration camp on August 14, 1941. Two weeks earlier, a prisoner had gone missing. The commandant, Karl Fristsch, announced the penalty to the entire camp: ten men would die in the starvation bunker. As his name was called, Franciszek Gajowniczek cried out, “My wife, my children!” Father Maximilian stepped forward and offered to take his place. He and the other nine men were tossed naked into a concrete hole in Building 13.

In 1952, Pope Pius XII elevated Stepinac to the cardinalate. He did not go to Rome for the investiture ceremony, knowing he would not be permitted to return home.

Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac was declared a martyr, having been slowly poisoned while in prison. Pope John Paul II beatified him on October 3, 1998.

On the evening of December 1st, 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders who were struggling against the imposition of French rule.

Perhaps the simplest, most profound statement ever uttered by Father Charles de Foucauld is the one on which a person could live his/her whole life: No matter what is being encountered, he said, It is JESUS in this situation.

Not technically martyrs, but lives of extraordinary heroism in the face of Fascism & Communism