Please pray for these 21 servants of the Church who are only some of those who lost their lives for the Lord in mission territories in 2007. The names of most of our mission martyrs are known only to God, but they were no less generous in laying down their lives for the love of their Lord whom they refused to deny and for the people they served.
Fr Mario Bianco, aged 90 Italian Consolata missionary, died in Manizales, Colombia. Fr Mario was beaten and tied up by thieves in his house on 4 February. He died of heart failure ten days later on 15 February.
Fr Martin Addai |
Fr Martin Addai, Ghanaian aged 46, a member of the Missionaries of Africa, (White Fathers) and seminary rector, was killed on 10 March 2007 in a Nairobi Kenya. He was attacked by a gang of criminals who shot him dead and stole the car.
Fr José Luis Camacho Cepeda, aged 54, Peruvian diocesan priest, was stabbed to death during the night of 11 March 2007 in his home in Bogota (Colombia). He had lived in Colombia for about 20 years.
Fr Fransiskus Madhu, aged 30, Divine Word Missionary (SVD) born in Flores (Indonesia), was killed on Palm Sunday, 1 April 2007, in the village of Mabungtot, in the north of the Philippines. On his way to say evening Mass, he was shot by a group of men carrying army weapons.
Sr Anne Thole, aged 35, born in Swaziland, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family. Sr Anne died on 1 April 2007 bravely trying to save patients from a fire at Duduza Mission AIDS Hospice at Wasbank, near Dundee, South Africa.
Fr Richard Bimeriki, a diocesan priest, from the parish of Jomba, north Kivu (D. R. Congo) died of his injuries in a Rwandan hospital on 7 April 2007, following an attack in by drunken soldiers in his parish in Congo on 12 March.
Fr Wolfgang Hermann, aged 46, from Trier in Germany, was murdered by a young man who broke into his home probably to commit a robbery on 10 April 2007 at Belém in the north of Brazil.
Fr Salvador Herandez Seller, aged 75, found dead in his home in Murcia, Spain on 11 April 2007, killed by blows to the head. Ordained in 1959, he went in 1962 on mission to Ecuador. He returned to Spain in 1988 where he was chaplain for immigrants.
Fr Humberto Macias Rosales, from Mexico, aged 52, was shot three times on 1 May 2007 at Aguascalientes, Mexico, by an unidentified gunman. He died shortly afterwards.
Fr Raghiid 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 all Iraq'.
Justin Daniel Bataclan, aged 20, Philippines, a seminarian of the Society of St Paul, was murdered in the evening of 7 June 2007 by a robber who broke into the family home in Cubao, Quezon City.
Br Enrique Alberto Olano Merino, aged 29, from San Salvador, of the Little Brothers of Mary, was killed during the night of 9 June 2007 in Guatemala City. Brother Enrique was attacked in a 'drive-by' shooting.
Fr Tomas Perez, aged 75, parish priest at Villafranca de Cordoba, Spain, was found with evident signs of violence in his apartment on 16 July 2007 by a housekeeper. Fr Tomas had ministered here for over 30 years.
Fr Fernando Sanchez Duran, parish priest at Santiago Tlaltepoxco parish, Mexico City, was taken hostage and killed on 22 July 2007. Fr Fernando was tireless in his efforts to help young people caught by drug abuse.
Fr Ricardo Junious, aged 70, (OMI) born in the United States, was found dead on 29 July 2007 in the presbytery of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in Mexico City. He had been strangled. Fr. Ricardo had been fighting drug trafficking in his parish.
Fr Florante Rigonan, aged 48, parish priest of St Isidore's in Pinili, in the northern Philippines), was shot dead on 27 August 2007 as he returned home after saying evening Mass.
Fr Nicholaspillai Packiyaranjith, diocesan priest and coordinator of the Jesuit Refugee Service in the Mannar district of Sri Lanka, was killed on 26 September 2007 when a bomb exploded on the roadside.
Fr Allard Msheyene, a South African Oblate Missionary of Mary Immaculate (OMI), died on 6 October 2007 after being shot and killed by roadside carjackers the previous night.
A rising tide of sacrifice for the faith
Between 1980-1989 at least 115 missionaries died violently. Between 1990-2007 at least 738 were killed, a figure that includes the genocide in Rwanda (1994). Also, many church personnel are included whom Pope John Paul II described as ‘martyrs of charity' – sacrificing their lives rather than abandoning the people entrusted to their care. Between 2001–2006, 152 pastoral workers have been killed. Remember them and all who are similarly tested for their faith, especially those whose deaths were hidden and unknown to the rest of the world.
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