Africa: most dangerous place to be a missionary

Shortly before the news broke that a kidnapped 18-year-old seminarian in Nigeria had been murdered, the Church published statistics that show that Africa is the most dangerous place in the world to be a missionary.

The death of Michael Nnadi, one of four seminarians kidnapped from the Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, Nigeria on January 8th 2020 was confirmed yesterday. The other three were released.

Meanwhile the Agenzia Fides revealed that of the 29 missionaries killed last year, 15 died in Africa. They comprised 12 priests, a male and a female religious and a lay woman.

The Agenzia, which is the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, also revealed that 12 missionaries were murdered in 2019 across the American continent. They included six priests, a permanent deacon, a male religious and four lay people. In Asia, one lay Catholic woman was killed, and in Europe, one nun was murdered.

Fides' analysis of the figures alludes to a new "globalisation of violence", meaning that the killing of missionaries is no longer concentrated in specific countries or geographical regions, but has now become "generalised" and widespread.

According to the report, many missionaries lost their lives during attempted hold-ups and robberies in impoverished societies, where violence is widespread and the authority of the state was either lacking or seriously weakened by corruption. "These murders are therefore not a direct expression of hatred of faith, but of a desire for 'social destabilisation'", the report says.

Fr Omar Sotelo Aguilar SSP, director of the Catholic Multimedia Centre, told Fides that priests and parish communities promote security, education, health services, the human rights of migrants, women and children. The local Church is, in fact, "a reality that helps people, in direct competition with organised crime", which knows that eliminating a priest is much more than eliminating a person, because it destabilises an entire community. This is how "a culture of terror and silence is established, which is important for the growth of corruption and, therefore, to allow cartels to work freely".

The report cites in particular the murder of Fr David Tanko, killed by armed men while he was on the way to the village of Takum, in Nigeria, to mediate a peace agreement between two local ethnic groups in conflict.

It also highlights the decapitation in the Central African Republic, of 77-year-old Sister Inés Nieves Sancho. A Sister of the Daughters of Jesus, for decades Sister Inés had taught local girls how to sew and also to learn trades.

Also mentioned is the British missionary, Brother Paul McAuley F.S.C. Born in Portsmouth in 1947, Brother McAuley was found dead, his body charred and burnt, inside a residence for indigenous students in Iquitos, Peru. A committed environmentalist who had lived in Peru since 1995, Brother Paul had founded a school in a poor area of Lima and campaigned for the education of young indigenous people. "It is almost impossible to compile a complete list of the bishops, priests, nuns, pastoral workers, simple Catholics, humanitarian workers, or members of international organisations, who are attacked, beaten, robbed, and threatened," says the Fides report.

The report also notes that the kidnapping of priests and nuns is now commonplace across the world: "In Nigeria, the abductions of priests and religious for the sake of extortion have increased, the majority being released within a few days, in some cases, however, with devastating consequences for their physical and psychological health. Analogous phenomena are frequent also in Latin America."

The agency does not call the murdered missionaries "martyrs" as it does not wish to prejudice any future causes for canonisation. However, it does quote the recent words of Pope Francis: "Martyrdom is the air of the life of a Christian, of a Christian community. There will always be martyrs among us: this is the sign that we are on the path of Jesus."

The Fides Agency uses the term "missionary" for all the baptised engaged in the life of the Church, regarding them all as "agents of evangelisation".

Link: www.fides.org/en