aught in situations of civil conflict, surprised during robberies or specifically targeted for death because of their work, at least 29 Catholic Church workers were killed in mission territories in 2003.
Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, published its annual “martyrology” Dec. 30, listing Catholic clergy, religious and lay people who were killed as they tried to serve the Church and their neighbors.
The most recent victim listed was Irish Archbishop Michael A. Courtney, the Vatican ambassador to Burundi, Africa.
The Archbishop died Dec. 29 of gunshot wounds after the car he was riding in was fired at; he was a specific target of the assassination.
A 68-year-old Claretian missionary in Cameroon, Father Anton Probst, was killed Dec. 25; returning to his room after Mass, he apparently surprised a group of thieves. He was bound, gagged and beaten to death.
Six of the 29 Church workers who were killed died in Colombia. The sixth victim, Father José Rubin Rodriguez, a parish priest, was kidnapped Nov. 14, and his body was found a week later.
Fides also listed six victims among Church workers in Uganda, including three boys who were among a group of 41 students from a minor seminary kidnapped by rebels in May (Some of the boys are believed to be still in the hands of the rebels). Together a missionary, Fr. Mario Mantovani, 84, in Uganda since 1957, and Ugandan Brother Godfrey Kiryoia, 29 were also killed.
The list given by Fides also included Catholic workers killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, two in El Salvador, and one each in Kenya, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Pakistan, Brazil, Somalia, India and Guatemala.
According to Fides, 25 Church workers were killed in 2002 and 33 in 2001.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)