Panorama of continents
The continent which registered the highest number of pastoral workers killed in 2007 was ASIA. Asia soil was bathed in the blood of 4 priests, 3 deacons and one seminarian. In Iraq on the steps of Holy Spirit Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, the parish priest, Fr Raghiid Ganni was shot dead with three deacons Basman Yousef Daoud, Ghasan Bidawid and Wahid Hanna.
Pope Benedict XVI, expressing his condolences to Chaldean Catholic Bishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, said he prayed their sacrifice “would inspire the hearts of all men and women of goodwill to new commitment to reject paths of hatred and violence, to fight evil with good and to cooperate to accelerate the dawn of reconciliation and justice and peace in Iraq”.
In the Philippines 2 priests, Divine Word missionary Fr. Fransiskus Madhu, and diocesan priest Fr Florante Rigonan, were killed and while at home for his holidays a seminarian was murdered by burglars who broke into his home. In Sri Lanka Fr. Nicholaspillai Packiyaranjith was assisting civil war refugees when he was killed in a bomb explosion.
In AMERICA 6 priests and 1 religious were killed. Mexico was the country in which the Church paid a triple tribute of blood, with the murder of three priests: Rev Humberto Macias Rosales, Rev Fernando Sanchez Duran, and missionary Fr Ricardo Junious. In addition 2 priests were killed in Colombia (Fr. Mario Bianco, of the Consolata Missionaries, and Rev. José Luis Camacho Cepeda), Rev Wolfgang Hermann a Fidei donum priest was killed in Brazil and Brother Enrique Alberto Olano Merino, a religious, was killed in Guatemala.
AFRICA saw the violent death of 3 priests and 1 woman religious. The country with the most victims was South Africa, 1 priest and 1 Sister: Fr. Allard Msheyene, OMI, and Sr Anne Thole, who perished when a hospital for AIDS patients caught fire. Then comes Kenya (Fr. Martin Addai, a member of the Missionaries of Africa) and Rwanda (where
Congolese Fr Richard Bimeriki, died in hospital of wounds suffered in an attack in his home country).
In EUROPE two priests were killed, both in Spain: Rev Salvador Herandez Seller, with years of missionary experience in Ecuador, and Rev. Tomas Perez.
A list which is never complete
To this provisional list made by Fides News Service, must be added the long list of many “'unknown soldiers' as it were of God's great cause” (TMA 37) whose names we may never know, who in every corner of the planet suffer and pay with the life for their faith in Christ. “Not rarely in fact, today also we have news from different parts of the world of missionaries, priests, bishops, men and women religious, lay faithful, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, deprived of their freedom or prevented from exercising it because they are disciples of Christ and apostles of the Gospel; very often people suffer and die for communion with the universal Church and loyalty to the Pope” (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus 26 December 2007).
In this context we conclude recalling three emblematic stories, which reflect the situations and risks faced every day, almost always in silence, by persons on the frontiers of
evangelization. Fr Jim Brown and lay man Wenceslaus Vimalathas disappeared on 20 August 2006 in Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka, a hot spot of the civil conflict between regular army forces and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam: of these two Catholics, despite repeated appeals, nothing more has been heard.
The second episode concerns Divine Word missionary Fr Ho Tran Bach, who on 9 August 2007 a Sydney (Australia), was stabbed by an unidentified man who broke into the college. Despite his serious wounds the missionary survived. However the local press reported that he was dead and never even bothered to correct the false news given.
Last of all, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi Italian PIME missionary whose long experience in the hands of kidnappers in the Philippines happily concluded with his release: “I am thinking of the missionaries, priests, women religious and lay people, who have fallen in the trenches of love at the service of the Gospel. Fr Giancarlo Bossi, for whom we prayed when he was kidnapped in the Philippines, will have much to tell us about this and today we rejoice to have him with us. Through him, I would like to greet and thank all those who spend their lives for Christ on the frontiers of
evangelization.” (Pope Benedict XVI, prayer vigil with young people in Loreto, 1 September 2007).
(From Fides Service)