Last year saw increase in pastoral workers killed

Last year saw an increase in the number of Church personnel killed in the service of their community. According to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, 26 pastoral workers were killed in 2014 – three more than in the previous year.

The agency’s annual report states that 17 priests, one religious brother, six religious women, a seminarian and a lay person were killed in 2014, many during violent robberies.

For the sixth year running, the majority (14) were killed in the Americas, followed by Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. Of those murdered in the Americas, four priests and a seminarian were killed in Mexico, two priests were murdered in the US, one in Canada, and five others and one seminarian in South America.

Many of those killed in Africa succumbed to Ebola, including 18 religious and lay workers of the Hospitallers of St John of God working in Catholic hospitals in Liberia and Sierra Leone.