• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
People in the Kayah state of Myanmar attend Catholic Mass in the Htaykho village in this 2015 file photo. (CNS photo/Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters)

Vatican pays tribute to 22 church workers murdered in 2021

December 30, 2021
By Catholic News Service
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: News, Vatican, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In situations of extreme poverty, war or civil tensions, 22 Catholic church workers were murdered in 2021, according to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Presenting its annual list of missionaries killed during the year Dec. 30, the news agency explained, “We use the term ‘missionary’ for all the baptized, aware that ‘in virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples.'”

None of the 13 priests, one religious brother, two religious sisters and six laypeople “carried out striking feats or actions,” Fides said, but they gave witness to their faith “in impoverished, degraded social contexts, where violence is the rule of life, the authority of the state was lacking or weakened by corruption and compromises and in the total lack of respect for life and for every human right.”

“From Africa to America, from Asia to Europe, they shared daily life with their brothers and sisters, with its risks and fears, its violence and its deprivations, bringing in the small daily gestures Christian witness as a seed of hope,” Fides said.

The 22 include Nigerian Father John Gbakaan Yaji of the Diocese of Minna, who was killed Jan. 15 by armed men who attacked his car; his body was found near the road, tied to a tree, Fides said.

And French Father Olivier Maire, provincial superior of the Montfort Missionaries, who was killed Aug. 9 in the provincial house of Saint Laurent sur Sèvre, in France, by a Rwandan migrant he had offered housing to.

The women on the Fides’ list are Sacred Heart Sisters Mary Daniel Abud and Regina Roba, who were killed in August, along with several other people, when their chartered bus was attacked on the road between Juba and Nimule, South Sudan.

In publishing the list, Fides said it was not looking only at church workers killed in traditional mission territories and it was not proclaiming any of them as “martyrs” in the technical sense of having been killed out of hatred for their faith.

While not included in the count, the Fides report also paid tribute to the 35 “innocent civilians, all of whom were Catholic,” who died Dec. 24, reportedly at the hands of the Myanmar military in Mo So village in Kayah state as they were fleeing fighting in the area. The victims, including elderly women and children, were shot and then their bodies were burned.

“The fact that the bodies of those killed, burned, and mutilated were found on Christmas Day makes this appalling tragedy even more poignant and sickening,” said Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon. “As the rest of the world celebrated the birth of Christ with joy, the people of Mo So village suffered death, shock and destruction.”

read more on vatican

Caring for others, serving life is the ‘supreme law,’ pope says

Jesus did not ignore those in need, and neither should Christians, pope says

Cardinal Czerny asks church to remember seafarers on Sea Sunday

Hunt Valley parishioner recalls her former student – a future pope

Ukraine religious leaders issue ‘desperate cry’ to world to end Russia’s war

care of creation

Pope Leo wears Chicago-made vestments to July 9 ‘care of creation’ Mass

Copyright © 2021 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Catholic News Service

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • 3 North Americans named to Vatican dicasteries for ecumenism, interreligious dialogue

  • Archbishop Lori announces clergy appointments, including pastor and associate pastors

  • St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School

  • Pope’s prayer intention for July: That the faithful might again learn how to discern

  • superman Movie Review: Superman

| Latest Local News |

Deacon Gary Elliott Dumer Jr., active in men’s ministry, dies

Radio Interview: The music and ministry of Seph Schlueter

Hunt Valley parishioner recalls her former student – a future pope

Father Herman Benedict Czaster, former Curley teacher, dies at 86

Loyola University Maryland graduate ordained Jesuit priest

| Latest World News |

80 years after ‘Trinity,’ Catholic-hosted gathering calls to abolish nuclear weapons

Gaza’s Christian community persevering amid hardship and hope

Nearly one in three conceptions in England and Wales end in abortion, government figures reveal

Caring for others, serving life is the ‘supreme law,’ pope says

Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ new president ‘pioneer in his field,’ French lawyer says

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • 80 years after ‘Trinity,’ Catholic-hosted gathering calls to abolish nuclear weapons
  • Gaza’s Christian community persevering amid hardship and hope
  • Nearly one in three conceptions in England and Wales end in abortion, government figures reveal
  • The virtue of patriotism
  • Caring for others, serving life is the ‘supreme law,’ pope says
  • Deacon Gary Elliott Dumer Jr., active in men’s ministry, dies
  • Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ new president ‘pioneer in his field,’ French lawyer says
  • Radio Interview: The music and ministry of Seph Schlueter
  • Jesus did not ignore those in need, and neither should Christians, pope says

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en