Word: martyrize
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...step with the present mood of the church he has sought to serve. Still others might say, with some justice, that his proud stand was a wasteful expense of spirit, since in the end it changed nothing and accomplished nothing. ∙ Thus some questions arise. Is Mindszenty a genuine martyr, a living lesson for the Christian world? Was his safe, if uncomfortable self-imposed imprisonment the moral equivalent of a saintly sacrifice or an act of stubborn self-indulgence? (If he wanted real imprisonment or, conceivably, death, he could quite easily have walked out of the embassy into the custody...
...answer depends upon how one understands the term martyr. The word itself means witness, and in the standard dictionary sense, it refers to someone who has given or at least risked his life in order to testify to the truth or relevance of the Christian faith. In the early church, the term was applied to anyone who preached the good news of Christ despite obstacles or threats of persecution; only in the second century did martyrdom take on the connotation of dying for the faith. Somewhat later, the church came to accept a "white" martyrdom as well...
Pierre Vallieres is not a martyr nor a culture-hero. Rather, he is a revolutionary, dedicated to the liberation of the Quebecois and identified with the same struggles of all other peoples of the world...
...parts of this memoir that deal with My Lai are mainly taken verbatim from Lieut. Calley's trial testimony. Readers who like to see Calley as scapegoat and martyr can read again his claim that the star prosecution witnesses were lying, and reflect on the lieutenant's reassertion that at My Lai he was acting not as a responsible individual but as the blind agent of the American people. What makes the book interesting are Calley's recollections of the months before and after...
...Being 'First Lieut. William L. Calley Jr. of the My Lai massacre" is a role that Calley has endured for almost 2½ years. He seems candid enough in his portrayal of the jokes (four marriage proposals by mail) and pains of being alternately public menace or martyr. He conceives of himself now as a reflection of a conscience-stricken nation. "I must be a reflection they'll want to look at." As his trial began, Calley, says to himself, "I had a greater responsibility than the prosecutor." Every time television cameras turned on him, Calley thought...