Fr Alphonsus Bello Gunmen attacked a Catholic parish in northern Nigeria last Thursday, killing one priest and kidnapping another.
Fr Alphonsus Bello was found dead May 21, the morning after his parish, St Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in the Diocese of Sokoto, was attacked by armed bandits. He was 33.
Fr Bello was kidnapped along with another priest, Fr Joe Keke, 75, who remains missing, according to a statement from the diocese in the extreme northwest of Nigeria.
Fr Cornelius Tagwai, chancellor of Sokoto diocese, appealed for prayers for “the immediate and safe return of Fr Keke and for the peaceful repose of Fr Bello”.
After the attack, Fr Bello’s body was left in farmland behind the local catechetical training school.
“May the soul of Fr Bello and the souls of the Faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” Fr Tagwai said in a message sent to ACI Africa.
The incident is the latest in a series of abductions and killings of clergy in Africa’s most populous country.
On May 17, a Catholic priest serving in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna archdiocese was kidnapped with 10 other people in an attack by gunmen that killed eight people.
Two days later, bandits reportedly attacked an Assemblies of God church building in northern Nigeria, also killing eight people.