The University of Notre Dame will be offering a series of talks titled “Saturdays with the Saints” on the mornings of football home game days throughout the Fall semester.
Sponsored by Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life, the series will focus on men and women who paid for their faith with their lives in the 20th century. Sadly, the professors will have plenty of martyrs to choose from, as more Christians have been martyred in the past century than in all previous centuries, according to the Institute.
The topic of martyrdom might provoke some interesting debate within the University, as Notre Dame professor Candida Moss has drawn much public attention and criticism with her claim that stories of the early Christian martyrs “were exaggerated, revised, and forged, often centuries later.” The series kicks off tomorrow with Professor Robert A. Krieg, professor of theology, speaking about Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.
Jägerstätter was beheaded in 1943 at the age of 36 for refusing to serve in the Third Reich. He was declared “blessed” by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. Krieg recently translated and edited “Franz Jaegerstaetter: Letters and Writings from Prison.”
On September 21, Margaret Pfeil, assistant professor in the Department of Theology and the Center for Social Concerns, will speak about “four women martyrs of El Salvador:” Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, Jean Donovan and Maura Clark.
Originally published by Catholic Education Daily on 30 August 2013.
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