Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Faenza (Agenzia Fides) – Saturday, March 20th at 8pm in the Cathedral, the Bishop of Faenza, Bishop Claudio Stagni, will preside at Mass for the thirteenth anniversary of the assassination of Father Daniele Badiali, Fidei Donum missionary, and open the diocesan phase of the process of beatification and canonization of the young priest, age 35, who was killed in 1997 in Peru. The Holy Mass will be preceded by a Via Crucis, which will start from the Parish of Ronco, a few kilometers away from Faenza, where Fr. Daniel was born and where he is buried.
The lifeless body of Fr. Daniele Badiali was found the morning of March 18, 1997 in a bank not far from his parish, his hands tied behind his back, killed by a gunshot to the neck. The priest, Pastor of San Luis, Diocese of Hauri, in the Peruvian Andes, had been abducted the previous evening of Sunday, March 16, by a group of bandits while he was returning with a group of people to the parish, after celebrating an evening Mass at Yauya, one of about sixty villages in the area. The bandits had stopped the car and made a girl come out to take her hostage, when Fr. Daniele offered to take her place. It seems that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom, but evidently feeling hunted by the police, preferred to kill the hostage.
When Fr. Daniele was killed, he was 35. He was a Fidei Donum priest of the Diocese of Faenza and had been a missionary in Peru since his ordination in 1991. The story of his vocation is related to movement “Operazione Mato Grosso,” which is doing work of evangelization and human development in Latin America, with the participation of several missionary congregations. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 17/3/2010)
