The year 2016 saw 28 Catholic pastoral care workers die by violence worldwide.
In its annual report on those religious and lay killed in the course of their work, the Church’s news body, Agenzia Fides, reveals that “in 2016 14 priests, nine religious women, one seminarian and four lay people died violently”.
The Americas were again – for the eighth consecutive year – the deadliest place for pastoral workers. Across the year, nine priests and three religious sisters were killed. This compares with eight workers in Africa – three priests, two nuns, one seminarian and two lay people – and Asia where one priest, four nuns and two lay people died by violence.
Europe was the location of one murder, and perhaps the most high profile of 2016 in the figure of 84-year-old Fr Jacques Hamel who was murdered by two Islamic extremists as he celebrated Mass at his church of Saint Etienne du Rouvray, Normandy, France on July 27.
Recalling the priest’s death, Pope Francis said of his in September: “Amidst the difficult moment he was living, amidst the tragedy that he saw coming, this humble, good man, who worked for fraternity, did not lose the lucidity to accuse and clearly named his assassin. He said clearly: ‘Satan, go!’”
Among those remembered who died tragically, but not at the hands of others, are American seminarian Brian Bergkamp who drowned on July 9 while saving a woman in the Arkansas River, and Ireland’s Sister Clare Crocket, missionary to Ecuador who died in an earthquake on April 16.