I martiri del creato per una ecologia integrale: nuove prospettive di ricerca

This chapter aims to investigate the new hagiographical category of "martyrs of creation", a large and heterogeneous group of martyrs linked to the defense of the environment who are promoted by different pressure groups and shaped by missionary Dorothy Stang (1931-2005)’s example. The martyrs of creation well represent the fluidity of the most contemporary hagiography and its communication on the web through image stories, videos, and famous quotes, without the intent, at least for some of them, to pursue the process for official Catholic sanctity. They are fully inserted in the widening of the concept of the twentieth-century martyrdom and are proposed as models not only for Catholics but as transversal to all Christians and even non-religious people. Their defense of the earth, or their environmentalist option, gives voice to the new ecological urgency of the Catholic Church which has been legitimized by Pope Francis with the encyclical Laudato si' (2015).