Pope advances sainthood cause of missionaries killed trying to save Indigenous

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Leo XIV has advanced the sainthood causes of two missionaries whose murders in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador led to the protection of remote Indigenous peoples from encroaching extractive industries.

Among a series of decrees published by the Vatican May 22, Pope Leo recognized the sacrifice of Spanish Bishop Alejandro Labaka Ugarte of the Apostolic Vicariate of Aguarico, Ecuador, and Colombian Sister Inés Arango Velásquez, a member of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, as an “offering of life,” a category distinct from martyrdom that Pope Francis established in 2017.

The category and its requirements for sainthood are explained in the apostolic letter, “Maiorem hac Dilectionem,” which established a category of heroically offering one’s life out of loving service to others. The recognition brings the two missionaries closer to beatification, pending verification of a miracle attributed to each one’s intercession.

Bishop Labaka was born in a remote village in Spain April 19, 1920, and joined the Capuchins in 1937 after he was conscripted to fight the Spanish Civil War. He was ordained in 1945 at the age of 25.

He possessed a strong missionary spirit and went to China with three other companions in 1947. However, the communist regime expelled all religious orders, including the Capuchins, in 1953.

He then went to Ecuador where he ministered for 33 years, particularly to Indigenous peoples in the Amazon forest.

After he was named prefect of Aguarico in 1965, he was invited to participate in the final session of the Second Vatican Council where he was particularly moved by its decree, “Ad gentes,” which emphasized the church’s missionary activity and the expression of the “seeds of the Word,” referring to the truth of the Gospel and grace being present throughout human cultures.

He resigned as prefect in 1970 in order to dedicate himself completely to working with Indigenous communities, particularly the Huaorani, “to discover with them the seeds of the Word, hidden in their culture and in their life; and by which God has shown his infinite love to the Huaorani people, giving them a chance of salvation in Christ,” he wrote in his diary.

He still maintained close ties to remote communities even after St. John Paul II named him to be the first bishop of the apostolic vicariate of Aguarico in 1984. He found himself increasingly trying to be a mediator between the government and petroleum companies, and the Indigenous peoples living where vast oil reserves were being discovered, in an effort to prevent violence and protect their rights, lives and cultures.

Oil workers sometimes faced violent attacks as they encroached on remote territories inhabited by the Tagaeri in 1987, which in turn provoked armed attacks by mercenaries protecting the interests of the oil companies.

Fearing the Tagaeri were going to be exterminated, Bishop Labaka and Sister Arango took an oil-company-owned helicopter and dropped down by rope to try to see if the people could relocate and avoid being slaughtered. They knew the risk, but felt “if we don’t go there, they (mercenaries) will kill them,” the bishop had said.

The next day, workers found their two bodies pierced by spears and arrows. After their deaths July 21, the government ordered all extractive activity to stop in areas inhabited by the Huaorani and Tagaeri peoples.

Eventually, the government defined and established a protected “Tagaeri Taromenane Intangible Zone” in 1999 to protect remote communities from extractive activities.

Sister Arango was born April 6, 1937, in Medellín, Colombia, and spent 20 years teaching before she became a missionary and joined the Capuchin mission in Aguarico in 1977. She worked in a hospital and evangelized different Indigenous communities under the guidance of then-Father Lubaka. She was assigned to share the Gospel with the Huaorani people in 1987.

During Pope Leo’s meeting May 22 with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the pope also signed a decree advancing the sainthood causes of Bishop Matthew Makil, the first native apostolic vicar of Kottayam of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India. Born March 27, 1851, he promoted the catechism, education in Catholic schools and the establishment of religious congregations and pious associations. He died Jan. 26, 1914.

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