2009 was also a year of martyrdom for 36 pastoral workers of the Church, including 30 priests, for whose lives in the service of the Church, we also give thanks and offer our prayers...
This was first posted in the BENEDICT thread to insure greater attention.
The true Church that
the media does not report
by Lucetta Scaraffia
Translated from
the 1/4-1/5/09 issue of
Thirty-seven missionaries were killed in the year that just ended.
Except for some praiseworthy exceptions (that were to be expected, after all) in the Catholic media, especially
Avvenire - which dedicated an entire page to the subject - the Italian media have hardly paid attention to the dossier circulated by Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, on these Catholics who were killed in the performance of their apostolate.
The table shows the nationality, diocese or institution and place and date of death (in European style, the day is indicated before the month).
The toll in 2009 was almost twice that in 2008. It was also the highest number registered in 10 years. And the figure is not even final, because the killings have probably led in some instances to other deaths as yet unreported.
The news has not received any play in the secular media - probably because it contradicts the image of the Church that prevails in the media. In which it is usually represented as a rich and powerful structure that wants to impose its laws even on those who do not feel part of the Catholic world.
The image is that the Church is led by an aged and rigid hierarchy that is incapable of understanding how the world has changed, and is therefore, an antique that should be liquidated for the sake of human freedom.
Rather, what the media highlight about the Church are the defects and offenses of some of its unfaithful members, such as the sex-offender priests in Ireland.
They prefer to represent the Church through its cardinals who are portrayed as stereotypes of powerful men or through priests who are a scandal to the Church because of their behavior or vecause of their criticisms of the Church - not through the men and women who are seriously committed and engaged in difficult and often dangerous missions, in which they risk their lives because of making that courageous choice of love.
These witnesses to Christ are found in all the continents, because while only one priest was killed in Europe last year (France), eight Europeans - all missionary priests - were among these who died on other continents; 19 were American; seven, African; and two, Asian.
Of course, there is no difference in the deaths of missionaries and local Catholics - all were killed as a consequence of their decision to live and work in dangerous places of the world, seeking through their activity and example to bring to those places a message other than the reality that their inhabitants have to live with day by day.
The mere fact of having chosen such a different life to bring trust and assistance where otherwise there is only fear and violence,
makes them dangerous to those who seek to dominate and oppress through such violence.
But it is precisely the heroic testimony of these missionaries which demonstrates - if there was any need to do so - the importance of having a presence like theirs in areas that have been debased and devastated by all kinds of abuse.
Without weapons - and often, with scarce means, certainly far less that those of the violent forces that they are up against - these Catholics demonstrate with their example that a different world is possible, a world of brotherly solidarity and truth, and of generous love given freely.
But that alone makes them a mortal target.
Why, for instance, has no one in the media picked up the story of William Quijano, a young man belonging to the Sant'Egidio Community in El Salvador. In the capital city, he was the sparkplug of a center that promotes the culture of peace - in a land where it is not just a matter of ideological utopia, but a concrete teaching against the violence that gets more wisdespread daily - and for this, he was killed by a gang of his go-for-broke contemporaries who constitute a reservoir of guns for hire for those who wield power.
And there is Fr. Révocat Gahimbare, killed in ambush in Burundi, while on his way to bring help to Bene Maria nuns whose convent had been attacked.
Many of the victims were killed in acts of pillage against their churches or residences, for the simple reason that they usually live and work in battle zones without any protection - places where nobody else would come to visit, much less, to reside, and could be called 'God-forsaken', except that the missionaries are there precisely to show that God never abandons anyone.
And this is the true Church, the one that is never written about or reported in the media, even when they are stories of crime, that normally is of great interest to them.
NB:
The FIDES dossier is a 15-page Word document but it is available only in Italian.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/01/2010 00:46]