Vatican Studies King for List of Martyrs

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Baptist crusader for civil rights and social justice whose life was ended by an assassin’s bullet, is a candidate to be proclaimed a martyr for the faith by the Roman Catholic Church.

King’s name is among those of more than 10,000 Christians who died for their faith being gathered by the Vatican for inclusion in a list of 20th century Christian martyrs. They will be honored by Pope John Paul II at a May 7 Mass at Rome’s Colosseum, where hundreds of Christians in the early church met their deaths.

If King, who was shot and killed in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., is named a martyr, he would not be on the track to sainthood. He would, however, be held up by the Catholic Church as an example of Christian faith.

The list of martyrs being prepared by the Vatican--called a martyrology in the church--is an extraordinary one being compiled at the urging of John Paul during this Great Jubilee Year 2000 to commemorate the third millennium of Christianity.

The pope’s “feeling was there were probably as many, if not more, people who have died under religious persecution in the 20th century as died during the great period of persecution that ended in the beginning of the 4th century,” said Lawrence Cunningham, a theologian at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.