Zimbabwe
John Bradburne
One of the beauties of John Bradburne is that he doesn’t fit into a mould. He knew God was leading him somewhere, but where? He tried the Benedictines and the Carthusians, retained a lifelong friendship with the Jesuits but ended up as a member of the Secular Franciscan Order, convinced that he wanted 'to serve Mass, not say Mass'. He saw himself as thoroughly English, and yet his desire to go wherever he felt God was calling him led him throughout England, Europe and the Holy Land, until he finally ended up in Mutemwa, Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then called during the days of the pre-Independence struggles.
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Saints need not be conventional
John Bradburne a martyr who turned love into the divine
The John Bradburne website: www.johnbradburne.com
John Bradburne’s poems: www.johnbradburnepoems.com
Brazil
Sister Dorothy Stang SND
She was a 73 year-old woman who did not fit the familiar template of a martyr. Yet Sister Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame and ‘Angel of the Amazon’ as she has been called, encountered the disenfranchised, impoverished, oppressed people of the Amazon Basin and fell in love with them. She took up the cause of whole villages, helpless before the treachery, violence and greed of the ranchers and multi-national logging companies as they destroyed homes, despoiled the land and laid waste the Brazilian rain forest... and she loved the indigenous population even at the cost of her own life.
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Sister Dorothy's story
The Sister Dorothy Stang website: www.dorothystang.org
Iraq
Fr Ragheed Ganni and three deacons, Basman Yousef Daoud, Ghasan Bidawid and Wahid Hanna, were shot and killed just after noon on Sunday 3 June 2007, in front of the Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul, Iraq, following the celebration of Mass. Fr Ganni was the first Catholic priest to be killed in Iraq. The Chaldean patriarch of Babylon, Mar Emmanuel III said, 'This was a shameful crime which must be rejected by every person of conscience. these were men of religion who faithfully offered prayers to Almighty God to restore peace, security and stability to Iraq.'
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The Last Mass of Father Ragheed, a Martyr of the Chaldean Church
In Father Ragheed's own words
Cambodia
Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas
On April 18, 1975, a mere 12 days after his Episcopal ordination and 12 days before Bishop Ramousse’s expulsion, Bishop Salas and some of his priests became part of the enslaved workforce in the nearby rice fields. There, he died of starvation, exhaustion and the notorious brutality of his guards on an unrecorded date in September 1977, to be buried in an unmarked mass grave.
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Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas
New bishop draws strength from martyrs
Bishop Paul Tep Im Sotha
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Diocese of Battambang
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Father Paul Tep Im Sotha was 34 and had been a priest for 7 years when he was appointed Prefect of Battambang. Another victim of the Khmer Rouge, his body was discovered floating down the river ‘sometime’ in May 1975, the very day after his episcopal ordination and installation as Bishop Salas’ coadjutor in Phnom Penh. He was a bishop for a few hours.
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Bishop Paul Tep Im Sotha
Catholics Remember ´Bishop´ And Others Killed By Khmer Rouge
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