Can a non-Catholic be a martyr? Benedict XIV's explanation (Part I)
Can those who die as non-Catholics be called 'martyrs' – perhaps if they die for the truth?
Can those who die as non-Catholics be called martyrs – perhaps if they die for the truth?
Editor’s Notes
The following text is an excerpt of Pope Benedict XIV’s De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et de Beatorum Canonizatione, newly translated.
Benedict XIV was a fascinating person: an remarkably dedicate scholar (whose “best friend was his pen”1), with a quick temper and a quicker wit. In his History of the Popes, Ludwig von Pastor writes:
“Lambertini’s biographers do not conceal the fact that owing to his lively temperament he occasionally displayed his irritation in a violent manner; but this never lasted long ; his good nature quickly gained the upper hand, and he would try to repair the lapse by showing especial friendliness. Far more difficult for him was to keep his ever sparkling wit within due bounds.”2
As an example of the latter: prior to his election, someone wrote a bitter satirical poem about him: “Lambertini improved the composition himself and sent it back with the remark that in that form it would possibly find a better market.”3
He was outspoken, even with Pope Clement XII – although Clement took this well, as Von Pastor explains:
“[He knew Lambertini and continued to seek his counsel in all matters of importance. All that the Pope asked was that the learned canonist should always speak his mind, which was not always that of the Curia.”4
The work on the canonisation process
Prior to his election to the papacy, Prospero Lambertini had indeed been involved with aspects process for many years. In 1708, he had been made Promotor Fidei – the “Devil’s Advocate” in the canonisation process – an office which he held for twenty years.5
Ludwig von Pastor recounts one anecdote, which demonstrates the seriousness with which both Lambertini and Rome herself treated canonisations:
“On one occasion Lambertini convinced some doubting Englishmen of the strictness with which canonizations were conducted in Rome by showing them the documents relating to a case; and they were greatly astonished to hear from him that on account of some seemingly insignificant objections raised by the ‘Advocatus Diaboli’ the Congregation had refused the canonization in question.”6
His seminal work De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione (“On the beatification of the servants of God and canonisation of the blessed”) was first published when he was still Prospero Lambertini, Archbishop of Bologna. Von Pastor writes:
“When a Bishop he managed through skilful disposition of his time and by working late into the night to expand the notes he had made in his stay in Rome into a large work on beatification and canonization.”7
Benedict XIV himself wrote the following of this work:
“I felt within me that I was called by religion itself to work for its glorification, and having the opportunity of occupying myself with the processes of beatification at an early stage of my career I did not find it difficult to devote myself to this theme. I undertook the work all the more gladly inasmuch as the procedure followed in canonizations was practically unknown to anyone except the persons actually engaged in it.”8
The authority of the work
Lambertini was widely praised for his work in general, and for this work in particular. It covers all aspects of the process, and many other topics such as the infallibility of the papal act of canonization, miracles, the virtues required of potential saints, and more.
“After he became Pope,” Von Pastor writes, “he brought out a second edition of his work.” However, it is not a strictly magisterial work: the preface to another such work published during his reign read as follows:
“But upon subjects where neither my predecessors in the Apostolic See, nor myself in my official Bulls or elsewhere have promulgated any definition as of Apostolic Authority and generally in all matters to which the weight of no public and authoritative pronouncement of the Church attaches, it is not my aim that anything in this book shall be of the nature of a decree of authority.”9
Melchior Cano explained further the weight which should be attributed to such books:
“When the Roman Pontiffs publish books on any subject they are expressing their opinion as any other learned man may do. They are not issuing pronouncements concerning the Faith in their capacity as Judges of the Church.”10
It is notable, however, that theologians treat this book as having great authority, and habitually refer to it as the work of Benedict XIV rather than Prospero Lambertini. It would be a mistake to consider the book as “just” the work of another learned man, as there probably has not been a man more learned on the subject of canonisations and saints than this.
With this in view, let us consider what he says about the difficult question of those who die outside of visible unity with the Catholic Church. This question has taken on greater seriousness in recent years, given the various commemorations of “ecumenical martyrs” by the “Conciliar/Synodal Church” – most recently, Leo XIV’s “Commemoration of 21st Century Martyrs and Witnesses of the Faith” on 14th September 2025, as well as Francis’ addition of 21 murdered Coptic Christians to the Roman Martyrology in 2023.
On the False Martys of the Heretics and Schismatics
Chapter 20, from
Benedict XIV’s On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonisation of the Blessed
Part I
The witness of the Apostles and the Fathers: non-Catholics cannot be martyrs
1. In ancient times the Marcionites, Novatians, Arians, and Donatists boasted of the multitude of their martyrs: and concerning the Priscillianists we read thus in Sulpicius Severus:
“Furthermore, when Priscillian was slain, not only was the heresy which had burst forth with him as author not suppressed, but it was confirmed and more widely propagated: for his sectaries, who had previously honoured him as a saint, afterwards began to venerate him as a martyr.
“The bodies of the slain were brought back to Spain, and their funerals were celebrated with great ceremonies. Indeed, it was considered the highest religious duty to swear by Priscillian.”
(Sacrae Historia, lib. 2)
But the heretics of our time also congratulate themselves on the multitude of their martyrs. Concerning such martyrs Cardinal Baronius speaks thus elegantly:
“Wasps have their honeycombs, just as bees do: and though they seem to imitate bees entirely in the construction of their cells, yet they do not, like bees, come together into one and the same home.
“For they lack a hive, because they know not unity, nor moreover do they have honey to bring into it: and though they may have fashioned a honeycomb with the greatest labour, weaving cell to cell, nevertheless it is always seen to be empty, dry, and void of honey.”
(Preface to the Martyrology, chapter 10)
The Apostle himself defined this matter, when he writes of himself to the Corinthians – “If I give up my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing” (1. Cor. 13) – which he had derived from Christ’s law: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me, scatters” (Lke. 11)
The Fathers of the Church support this, namely Augustine in six hundred places against the Donatists, John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Cyprian.
For Cyprian says thus:
“If one harshly and cruelly separated from the Church turns to gentile ways and worldly works, or, rejected from the Church, passes over to heretics and schismatics, where, even if he be killed for the Name afterwards whilst established outside the Church and divided from unity and charity, he cannot be crowned in death.”
(Epistle 52 to Antonianus according to Pamelius’s edition)
And at the end:
“But apostates and deserters, or adversaries and enemies, and those who scatter Christ’s Church, even if they are killed for the Name outside, cannot according to the Apostle be admitted to the peace of the Church, since they have held neither the unity of the Spirit nor of the Church.”
And again, in Epistle 54 to Pope Cornelius:
“He cannot be fit for martyrdom who is not armed by the Church for battle.”
And to the same, Epistle 57:
“There is no reason why they should flatter themselves in confessing the Name, since it is established that if such people are killed outside the Church, theirs is not the crown of faith, but rather the punishment of treachery; nor will they dwell in God’s house among the united, whom we see to have departed from the peaceful and divine house in the fury of discord.”
These and other testimonies of the Fathers can be read learnedly collected in Cardinal Baronius loc. cit., in Alan Cope Dialogue 6, chapter 4, in Molanus chapter 10 in the Preface to Usuard’s Martyrology. Besides which, the martyrs of Christ themselves took the greatest care to be distinguished from the false martyrs of heretics, as Eusebius observes from Clement of Alexandria
“Whenever churchmen called to undergo martyrdom for the true faith happened to come together with certain people from the Phrygian heresy, who are called martyrs, they always dissented from them; and carefully avoiding communion with them, they achieved the outcome of glorious martyrdom.”
(History, book 5, chapter 17)
Then he adds:
“And this is established to be true from those things which in our age were done in the city of Apamea, which is situated on the Maeander, by the martyrs Gaius and Alexander from Eumenia.”
To this also pertains Canon 34 of the Synod of Laodicea, where those who have recourse to the martyrs of heretics are struck with anathema.
In this respect, heresy and schism are equivalent
2. Schism is akin to heresy in this respect. This is so, not only because heresy usually arises from schism, as Saint Jerome testifies:
“However, no schism does not invent some heresy for itself, so that it may seem to have rightly withdrawn from the Church.”
(Epistle to Titus chapter 3)
Rather, it is because even if schism does not have heresy as a companion, the separation alone from the unity of the head of the Church is sufficient that one dying outside unity cannot be numbered among martyrs.
“Whoever therefore shall be separated from this Catholic Church, however laudably he may think himself to live, by this crime alone, that he is disjoined from Christ’s unity, he has not life”
These are the words of the Synodal Epistle of the Council of Cirta, which Saint Augustine acknowledges was dictated by himself, in Labbé tome 2 of Councils page 1520.
The same Saint Augustine says:
“We believe also in the holy Church, namely the Catholic one; for heretics and schismatics also call their congregations churches.
“But heretics, by pronouncing false things about God, violate faith itself. Schismatics, though they believe what we believe, leap away from fraternal charity by iniquitous dissensions.
“Wherefore neither do heretics pertain to the Catholic Church, which loves God; nor do schismatics, since they do not love their neighbour.”
(On Faith and the Creed chapter 10)
Likewise, regarding martyrdom, he says:
“The martyrdom of schismatics has not even a reward, but is the punishment of torment.”
(Book 1, Against the Donatists, chapter 9)
Optatus of Milevis agrees:
“To be at peace with brothers is the first foundation of martyrdom; without peace, which schism sunders, martyrdom can neither exist nor be called such.”
(Book 3 Against Parmenianus)
In the places cited, Saint Cyprian speaks equally of heretics and schismatics; but in the Book on the Unity of the Church he has discourse only about schismatics:
“Who therefore is so wicked and faithless, who so mad with the fury of discord, that he dares to rend the unity of God, etc.? Even if such people are killed in confession of the Name, this stain is not washed away even by blood, etc.
“Though they burn in flames and fires, or cast to beasts lay down their lives, that will not be the crown of faith, but the punishment of treachery.”
And concerning heretics and schismatics these things are contained in Chapter Firmissime, on heretics, which is taken from Fulgentius On Faith to Peter:
“Hold most firmly, doubt not at all, that every heretic or schismatic, though he shed his blood for Christ, is to share with the devil and his angels, unless before the end of this life he shall have been incorporated and restored [redintegratus] to the Catholic Church.”
(Chapter 39 of the Roman edition, page 497)
Surely only a stranger and foreigner to ecclesiastical history could be ignorant of the schism of Novatus against Saint Cornelius the Supreme Pontiff: Novatus is that one who is sometimes called Novatianus, concerning whom Saint Pacianus, Bishop of Barcelona, who wrote epistles against the Novatians, says thus:
“Moreover, even if Novatianus suffered something – even if he was killed – he was nevertheless not crowned.
“Why not? Outside the peace of the Church, outside concord, outside that Mother of whom one who is a martyr ought to be a portion.”
(Epistle 2 to Sympronius, in tome 4 of the Library of Fathers)
But it may be gathered from Dionysius if Alexandria that pouring out one’s life to prevent a schism, or to put an end to a existing schism, constitutes a sufficient cause for true martyrdom:
“If indeed you were brought unwillingly to this, as you assert, you will show this to us by returning of your own accord. It would indeed have been better to suffer anything, rather than God’s Church being rent.
“Nor would it have been less glorious to undergo martyrdom for this reason, lest you rend the Church, than lest you sacrifice to idols: nay, in my judgment indeed, that would have been more illustrious. For here one sustains martyrdom for his own single soul; there for the whole Church.”
(Epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria to Novatus in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History book 6 chapter 45 from Valesius’s Paris edition 1659 page 247)
The same may be drawn from Ennodius, in his Epistle to Faustus, in which he asserts that those killed by the followers of Laurentius, whom they found adhering to the legitimate pontiff Saint Symmachus, are worthy of the martyr’s crown. It may also be gathered from the judgement of the church of Constantinople, which venerated as martyrs the clerics killed by schismatics in the time of Saint John Chrysostom, as is had extensively in Cardinal Baronius (when he discusses the year 502 AD, n. 13). Thus, anyone can easily gather that, outside the unity of the Church and in schism, there can be no martyrdom – even if the schismatics have not yet become heretics.
The different ways in which a heretic may be ‘martyred’
3. But that this matter may be explained more clearly, it is worthwhile to separate case from case.
For either a heretic dies to defend his heresy; or he dies for a true article of Catholic faith – for example, if a Calvinist should die for the consubstantiality of the divine Son, in which he himself does not differ from Catholics.
If we speak of a heretic dying for the defence of his heresy, it is clear that he dies in most foul sin, and that his death is more wretched than the death of a murderer and one guilty of lese majesty; since the latter usually dies detesting his wickedness and seeking excuse from error, stupidity, blindness, human lapse, injury received, drunkenness, and the like; but the former dying insolently defends the gravest crime and presents the greatest specimen of diabolical pertinacity, as Alan Cope well pursues in Dialogue 6, chapter 5.
It must be added that a dying heretic either:
Dies recognising his error and confessing his fault; and then he rather bears witness to truth than to error; yet not through martyrdom, but through pious and just confession and repentance;
Or he dies denying his fault and confessing faith only with his mouth; and then he is not a martyr of the true faith, which he does not believe, nor is he a witness of his error, which he does not confess with his mouth;
Or, he dies because of pertinacity in his error, choosing rather to die than to retract it; and such death cannot be martyrdom, since blood is not shed for Christ, nor does the acceptance of death proceed from a pious and right will, which true martyrdom demands.
One can read Suarez on this matter, in Defence of the Catholic Faith book 1, chapter 20.
Besides this, it may seem useless to bring other things to the matter of which we now treat, since the heretics themselves – notably the author of the History of Calvinism (or Apology of the Reformers, Rotterdam, 1683, part 1 chapter II) confesses in express words that a heretic dying for heresy dies in crime; and he only tries to prove that Calvinists undergoing death lest they abandon Calvin’s dogmas do not die for heresy.
If, however, discourse is transferred to a heretic dying for an article of true Catholic faith, the same judgement must be made concerning him as concerning a heretic dying for his heresy – namely, that he cannot be held as a martyr. Though he dies for truth, he nevertheless does not die for truth proposed to him through faith, since he lacks faith.
The testimonies of the Fathers collected can be read in Pamelius (Epistle 52 of Saint Cyprian n. 50), and in Theophilus Raynaud (Treatise on Martyrdom by Plague part 2, chapter 4). To this, look also the words of the Fathers related above, who deny martyrdom to heretics, even if they are killed for the Name. For to die for the Name is the same as to die for a true article of faith: and therefore Alan rightly adds that the damnation of both dying is indeed equal, though he who dies for a true article is to be tormented more mildly in hell than he who dies for a heresy:
“That the damnation is equal for both, I have already taught from Cyprian and Augustine; that is, that both are entirely excluded from the Kingdom and Face of God to eternal punishment.
“Yet I would not deny that perhaps the accumulation of punishment is not equal for both, which is intensified or remitted for individuals according to the nature of their fault; so that such a death undertaken by a heretic does not remove, but nevertheless alleviates and mitigates eternal punishments, and makes damnation itself more tolerable than if he denied Christ or was pertinaciously subjected to final punishment for heresy itself.”
(Dialogue 6, chapter 7)
Durandus indeed taught that a heretic denying a single article of faith retains the habit of supernatural faith, at least unformed (3 Sentences dist. 23, quest. 5, art. 2): but this is commonly rejected by other theologians, with Saint Thomas as leader. To the question proposed, “Whether one who disbelieves one article of faith can have uninformed faith concerning other articles,” he responds:
“I answer that there remains neither formed nor unformed faith in a heretic disbelieving a single article of faith.
“Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith.
“Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will.
“Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will.”
(2-2, quest. 5, art. 3)
From this doctrine of Saint Thomas, theologians unanimously teach that a heretic dying for a true article of faith, as he is one lacking both uninformed and formed faith, cannot be a martyr:
Suarez in the cited Work on Defence of the Catholic Faith book 1, chapter 20, n. 5
Vasquez in 3rd part of Saint Thomas tome 2, quest. 68, art. 3, disput. 154, chapter 6
Alan Cope in the cited Dialogue 6, chapter 7
Theophilus Raynaud in the often cited Treatise on Martyrdom by Plague part 2, chapter 4, num. 3
Maurus Theology tome 3, book 11, quest. 96, n. 2
Cardinal Capisuccus in his Controversy on Martyrdom §. 20, vers. The same reason is
Cardinal Gottus Theology tome 13, quest. 2, doubt 3, §. 2, vers. Nor will he be a martyr either;
And extensively Verricellus on Apostolic Mission tit. I, quest. 27.
But what about heretics, in good faith, who die for the actual truth?
The only dispute among them is whether an invincibly ignorant heretic, if he dies for a true article of faith, is truly a martyr: to which it is customarily responded that he can be a martyr before God (coram Deo), but not before the Church (coram Ecclesia). For they adduce that he can be a martyr before God, from the words of John 15: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin” – provided, however, that such a heretic, dying for a true article of faith, is as they say habitually disposed to believe all things that would be proposed to him by a legitimate proponent.
They then say that such a one will not be a martyr before the Church, since the Church does not judge concerning internal but external and sensible things, and from external heresy infers conjecture and presumption of internal heresy, as Verricellus and Cardinal de Laurea extensively teach (3rd book of Sentences part 2, tome 3, disput. 20, art. 10, n. 167 and following, and on Apostolic Mission cit. tit. 1, quest. 28).
Nor do they urge the examples of saints who, though having taught something contrary to the Catholic faith, died for the faith and are venerated by the Church as martyrs – concerning whom Baillet extensively treats in his Preface to the Lives of Saints num. 89. For as he himself well notes in Notes num. 31, that matter concerns saints who taught something before the Church’s definition, which after their death was condemned by the Church as heretical and erroneous. Among such saints, Saint Cyprian stands out, concerning whom we have spoken elsewhere, and as Estius also rightly noted:
“Careful distinction must be made between a) those who, retaining general readiness to believe whatever the Catholic Church believes, nevertheless err in certain dogmas of faith through ignorance, because it has not yet been sufficiently declared to them that the Church so believes; and b) those who, after the Church’s doctrine has been sufficiently manifested, still choose to dissent from it, either by asserting the contrary or at least by doubting, which is proper to heretics.
“For concerning those former ones the response is easy: they have communion of true faith with the other Catholics in that part of doctrine concerning which they hold what is true, etc.; of whose number was Cyprian.” (3rd book of Sentences dist. 23, §. 12)
Therefore, I say that these examples cannot be used against what has been said thus far, which applies to those who are still formal heretics when they undergo death for a true article of faith.
Hatred of the Church as the only point of unity amongst heretics
4. It is the custom of heretics to fill their Pseudo-martyrologies even with the names of those who adhered to a sect contrary to their own. Molanus relates this:
“For I hear that among them are counted the pseudo-martyrs not of just one heretical sect, but, in fact, of every single sect that currently strives to obscure the Roman Church.”
(Preface to Usuard’s Martyrology chapter 10)
Concerning Foxe’s mendacious Martyrology, Alan Cope speaks thus in the often cited Dialogue:
“Here I see not only Zwinglians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and other heretics, but also those against whom capital punishment was decreed for theft and sacrilege, for magic and damned arts, and finally for lese majesty, promiscuously occupying the places of Christ’s most holy martyrs.”
(Dialogue 6, chapter 16)
And a little after:
“But who would ever believe that a place in this catalogue would be given to John Wessel, who denied that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, which not even Foxe will be able to deny?
“What, that not only Peter the German (whom Foxe himself does not deny was accustomed to assert that Christ took no flesh from his Mother Mary), but also Cowbridge, who could not even bear the name of Christ, are here placed as if in some honoured seat of martyrs, with the holy martyrs and true martyrs of God – and Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus, expelled?”
In his History of Calvinism (book I at the year 1535), Maimbourg noted the same thing: that even Calvinists number among their martyrs those who are of another sect, which they themselves condemn. For it is certain that John Hus, who confessed transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Eucharist – which they deny – is ascribed by them to the catalogue of martyrs.
For though the author of the above-cited Apology of the Reformers (chapter 12) impudently responds that the fact that John Hus raged against the Roman Church is enough for him and his for Hus to be numbered among the martyrs, yet there is no one who does not see the impudent folly of the man. He is carried away by such fury that he thinks Hus, dissenting from him and his in a most grave article, is a martyr simply because agrees with him and his in irrational and impious hatred against the Roman Church and Roman Pontiff.
Conclusion: Revelation must be believed in its integrity
But James the Apostle says:
“And whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all. For he that said: Thou shalt not commit adultery, said also: Thou shalt not kill. Now if thou do not commit adultery, but shalt kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.”
And therefore, just as one who from charity kept the whole law, loses charity if afterwards he offends in one thing – and consequently, whatever else he observes, he does not observe from the habit of charity, which consists in love of God with the whole heart and in perfect obedience towards him – so also, he who believes all other things, but does not believe some one thing prescribed by faith, loses the habit of supernatural faith.
So also, therefore, whatever such a one still believes, he does not believe it with infused and supernatural faith, since faith consists in one thing: in believing all things revealed by God in the Scriptures, according to the Church’s interpretation.
[Translated with the aid of AI, with each line scrutinised by a person. In the next part, Benendict XIV discusses the issues of schism – and provides instructive principles for our time, in which Catholics of good will disagree about whether the Holy See is vacant or not.]
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Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes, Vol. XXXV, p. 31. J. Hodges, London, 1891. Available at Archive.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 32
Ibid., p. 25, 312.
Ibid., p. 26
Von Pastor, p. 35
Ibid., p. 25
Cited in Stephanie Kirk, ‘Benedict XIV and New World Convent Reform’, p. 88, in Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment: Art, Science and Spirituality. Ed. Rebecca Messbarger et al., pp. 74-92. University of Toronto Press, London, 2016.
Ibid.