The Church mourns the loss of Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel as Catholics reflect on the tradition of recognizing the many forms of bearing witness to Jesus Christ.
Among the unanswered questions in the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis earlier this week is whether the two children who died are martyrs.
Like St. Óscar Romero in 1980 and St. Thomas Becket in 1170, they died while praying in church.
But does that make Harper Moyski, 10, and Fletcher Merkel, 8, martyrs as the Catholic Church defines the term?
The answer isn’t clear-cut, partly because not all the facts are known and partly because the Church’s concept of martyrdom has been expanding in recent decades.
The Register contacted several Catholic scholars who study martyrdom to ask the question and received varying answers.
Harper and Fletcher, pupils at Annunciation Catholic School in the Windom neighborhood of Minneapolis, were attending an all-school 8:15 a.m. Mass on Wednesday at Annunciation Church when a man outside the building fired dozens of rounds with a .223-caliber (5.56-millimeter) rifle, as well as a handgun and a shotgun, through narrow stained-glass windows on one side, authorities have said. The two children died. Eighteen other people were wounded, most of them students at the pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.
The shooter, Robert (Robin) Westman, 23, a male who identified as a female, fatally shot himself shortly after he shot up the church.
More: https://www.ncregister.com/news/are-the-minneapolis-church-shooting-victims-martyrs
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