Pastoral Care Workers Killed In 2011

Once again this year, Fides publishes an annual document of all the pastoral workers who lost their lives in a violent manner over the course of the last 12 months.

According to information in our possession, during 2011, 26 pastoral care workers were killed: one more than the previous year: 18 priests, 4 religious sisters, 4 lay people.

For the third consecutive year, the place most affected, with an extremely elevated number of pastoral workers killed is AMERICA, bathed with the blood of 13 priests and 2 lay persons. Following is AFRICA, where 6 pastoral workers were killed: 2 priests, 3 religious sisters,1 lay person. ASIA, where 2 priests, 1 religious sister, 1 lay person were killed. The least affected was EUROPE, where one priest was killed.

Some were victims of that violence, fighting it or being willing to help others with the small everyday problems, giving their own safety last priority. This year too, many were killed in attempted robbery or kidnapping which ended badly, caught in their homes by bandits in search of imaginary riches. Others were killed in the name of Christ by those opposing love with hatred, hope with despair, dialogue with violent opposition, the right to perpetrate abuse.

On the day of the liturgical feast of the Martyr Stephen, December 26, Pope Benedict XVI recalled during the Angelus: "As in ancient times, today the sincere adherence to the Gospel may require the sacrifice of life and many Christians in various parts of the world are occasionally exposed to persecution and martyrdom. But, the Lord reminds us, "he who endures to the end shall be saved" (Mt 10:22)".

Although the biographical notes of these brothers and sisters killed are scant, they professed "a sincere adherence to the Gospel" not only in words, but with the testimony of their lives, in situations of suffering, poverty, tension, degradation, violence ... without discrimination of race, caste, religion, with the sole aim of ensuring the Father’s love and promoting the human person, every man.

"The true imitation of Christ is love", said the Holy Father on December 26. And this was certainly the rule of life for Sister Angelina, who was killed in South Sudan by militants of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) while she was bringing medical aid to refugees; and also for Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro, of the Scalabrinian Lay Movement of Nuevo Laredo (Mexico) , who worked for a newspaper and was committed to assisting migrants, she was kidnapped and murdered by drug dealers;  even for Father Fausto Tentorio, Italian missionary of  PIME, priest in Mindanao (Southern Philippines), who devoted his life to the service of literacy and development of indigenous people; or even for the layman Rabindra Parichha, killed in Orissa in eastern India: former itinerant catechist was very involved in the legal field and a promoter of human rights.

Fides’ list does not only include missionaries ad gentes in the strict sense, but all pastoral care workers who died violent deaths. We do not propose to use the term "martyrs", since it is up to the Church to judge their possible merits and also because of the scarcity of available information in most of cases, with regard to their life and even the circumstances of their death. In this regard, we register, in this year coming to an end, the opening of the beatification process for 15 martyrs, including missionaries and lay catechists, killed in Laos, "in hatred of the Christian faith" between 1954 and 1970 : 5 Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), 5 members of the Society for Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP) and 5 lay Laotian catechists.

The provisional list compiled annually by Fides, must therefore be added to the long list of many of whom there may never be news, who in every corner of the world suffer and even pay with their lives for their faith in Christ. They are  the "cloud of unknown soldiers for  the great cause of God" – according to the words of Pope John Paul II - from the Pakistan Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, the first Catholic to hold this office, committed to peaceful coexistence between the religious communities in his country, killed on March 3, to the young Nigerian whoin Abuja, at the church of Santa Teresa, was working for the security service to protect the places of worship on Christmas Day, killed by an attack along with other 35 people.