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Hello Father Angelo, 

I also read that martyrs do not even go to Purgatory, as they receive a baptism in blood. Is it the equivalent to actual baptism? Is it true? I thank you immensely for the Service you carry out via the Internet.

I remember you in prayer to the Lord and to Mary Most Holy. 

Marco

Dear Marco, 

1. Yes, what you read is true. Being willing to give one’s life because of faith in Christ is undoubtedly the most perfect act of love for him. This love for the Lord in Sacred Scripture is called charity. And charity, as Saint Peter recalls, covers a multitude of sins (1 Pt 4,8).

2. According to the doctrine of the Church, martyrdom makes the sinner holy (justified), even if he was not yet baptized, but only a catechumen.

Tertullian writes: “We also have a second Baptism, also unique and identical, that is, that of blood, of which the Lord says, “I have to be baptized with a Baptism, when He had been baptized already. This is Baptism which both stands in lieu of the fontal bathing when that has not been received, and restores it when lost. “(De Baptismo, 16).

In the Translation of Saint Hippolytus we read that if a catechumen is killed during the persecution “he is justified (sanctified); in fact, one receives Baptism in his own blood”.

In turn, St. Cyprian writes about the catechumens who have suffered martyrdom, “They are not deprived of the sacrament of Baptism, since they were baptized in a more glorious and greater Baptism, that of their blood, of which the Lord spoke in Lk 12.50” (Ep. 73, 22).

And St. Augustine, based on some passages of Scripture, such as Mt 10:32; 16:25 and Ps 115,15, writes, “The death of those who, despite not having been purified by the wash of regeneration, die by the faith of Christ has as much value in remitting their sins as holy Baptism has” (De Civitate Dei 13.7). 

3. It also eliminates all mortal and venial sin and pays all the temporal punishment for past sins.

4. Every martyr therefore enters heaven immediately, without going through purgatory. Innocent III writes that anyone who prays for him insults the martyr (De Contemptu mundi, 3, X, 41, 6).

5. This is the reason why the Church for the beatification of a martyr exempts from the process on the heroic degree of virtues and does not ask for a miracle. Instead, she asks him for his canonization.

6. Adults are required to have at least imperfect repentance of one’s sins. In fact, if not even baptism remits sins without a minimum of repentance, all the more reason does martyrdom demand it.

However, it is rightly believed that the pain of one’s sins is already implicit in the voluntary acceptance of death to confess one’s faith in Christ. 

7. Martyrdom deserves a notable increase in grace and glory. And it also deserves a special crown in the sky, called a halo. St. Thomas says that it is a joy (gaudium) or a privileged reward, corresponding to a privileged victory (In IV Sent., Dist. 49, q. 5, a. 3).

I wish you well, I remind you to the Lord and I bless you. 

Father Angelo