Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Uvira (Fides News Agency) – Blessed are the Xaverian missionaries killed out of an odium fidei during the Mulelist uprising against the Congolese Government. Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa, representing the Pope, presided over the rite, celebrated today in Uvira in the churchyard of St. Paul's Cathedral. Also concelebrating, the apostolic nuncio to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bishop Mitja Lescovar, and several other bishops from nearby areas.
“I am convinced that the blood of our blessed martyrs will obtain for us the gift of peace,” Cardinal Besungu said in the homily. The prelate also made an appeal for peace: "Enough with the violence! Enough with barbarities! Enough with the killings and deaths" on Congolese soil, " violence and wars are the result of foolishness". For the Archbishop of Kinshasa "they are led by people who stray from the path of intelligence, by senseless people, who have neither fear of God nor respect for man, who was created in the image and likeness of God". “God does not like wars. God does not like violence. God does not like conflict. For armed conflicts demean man and deprive him of his dignity as a child of God. Violence, conflicts and wars are the work of the devil and his acolytes who sow desolation and death".
Similar words were also spoken in the Angelus prayer by Pope Francis who, overlooking a scorching St. Peter's Square, remembered the new Blesseds in this way: "Their martyrdom was the culmination of a life spent for the Lord and for their brothers. May their example and their intercession promote pathways of reconciliation and peace for the good of the Congolese people".
Three Xaverian missionaries, two priests and a non-ordained missionary, along with a diocesan priest, were killed in Baraka and Fizi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on November 28, 1964. After Congo achieved independence in 1960, the transition phase began from Franco-Belgian colonialism to the new socio-political situation, characterized by turmoil, which involved the Catholic Church as well.
Patrice Lumumba, democratically elected and pro-Soviet, was executed in 1961 by Colonel Mobutu who, after a period of turbulence, divvied up power between his faction (the Mobutu) and that of the Kasavubu. In 1963 Pierre Mulele, former minister with the Lumumba government, returned to Congo after a period of ideological indoctrination and military training in China, giving rise to a revolt movement against the government structures of Leopoldville and against all European presence. The guerrillas took the name of Simba ('lions' in Swahili). In such climate, while the Europeans and most Catholic and Protestant Missionaries were leaving the Congo, the Xaverians decided to stay.
Among them Luigi Carrara (born in Cornale di Pradalunga on March 3, 1933, entered the Institute of Xaverian Missionaries in 1947. He vowed temporary profession on September 12, 1954 and his perpetual one on November 5, 1959. Ordained a priest on October 15, 1961, the following year he was sent to Baraka. His missionary apostolate was characterized by closeness with Christ in prayer and unconditional service to the smallest and humblest), Giovanni Didonè (born in Rosà on March 18, 1930, joined the Institute of Xaverian Missionaries in 1950. He took his temporary vows on October 12, 1951 and his perpetual vows on November 5, 1954. Ordained a priest on November 9, 1958, and the following year was sent to Fizi), Vittorio Faccin (born in Villaverla on January 4, 1934, joined the Institute of Xaverian Missionaries in 1950. He made his religious profession on December 8, 1952. Sent on a mission to Baraka in 1959) and Albert Joubert (born in Saint Louis de Mrumbi-Moba - then Belgian Congo - on October 18, 1908, to a French father in the Papal Guard, and an African mother. Ordained a priest on October 6, 1935, after having carried out the apostolate in various parishes and dioceses).
All of them were killed on November 28, 1964. Around 2:00 p.m., a military jeep stopped in front of the church of Baraka from which Abedi Masanga, a leader of the Mulelist rebels who had been occupying the area for months, exited. He invited Brother Vittorio Faccin to get in the jeep and upon his refusal, he shot him in the chest, killing him. After hearing the shots, Father Carrara, who was confessing, stepped outside the church.
Abedi told him to get in the car but Father Carrara, at the sight of his dead brother, knelt in front of his body and was killed there with a bullet to the head. The bodies of the two clerics were horribly dismembered and one of Brother Vittorio's arms was carried as a trophy around the village of Baraka by a young man, with the command of rebels, who later converted.
After these murders, Colonel Abedi Masanga's jeep headed for Fizi, where it arrived in the evening. Here – against the advice of the leaders of the Mulelite rebels who controlled the mission and protected the Xaverian Fathers – he went to the parish and had the Clerics called. Father Didonè opened the door along with Abbé Joubert. At the sight of the weapons, Father Didonè had just enough time to make the sign of the cross, when Colonel Abedi Masanga shot him, hitting him in the forehead. Immediately after, Abedi also shot Abbé Joubert, hitting him in the chest. Wounded, Joubert tried to move away but was fatally hit by another shot from behind.
The beatification process established that they were killed out of an odium fidei. Their murders, in fact, took place in an atheistic and anti-religious context characterized by a magical-superstitious background which motivated the Simbas. The Christian religion had been violently opposed, with churches looted, tabernacles and sacred images desecrated, episodes of outrage and the destruction of religious symbols had occurred.
Simba violence had been directed not only against white clergy, both men and women, but also against black priests, black male and female members of the clergy, and this would confirm the anti-religious hatred that moved them. The Simbas contrasted Christianity with their traditional religion comprising tribal and animist rites. The material perpetrator of the assassinations, Abedi Masanga, who was a Christian, changed radically after being indoctrinated by the Chinese with the deeply anti-Christian Maoist ideology.
They knew that some of the Xaverian brothers of Uvira had been taken hostage by the rebels and that their lives were in danger. They themselves had witnessed the Simba rebels' many crimes. They were aware of the risks and their decision to stay put despite everything, confirms their willingness to accept martyrdom rather than abandon the faithful and the mission. Abbé Joubert had also expressed his willingness to martyrdom
For all four of them, martyrdom was the culmination of a life spent entirely for the Lord and for one's neighbors. (F.B.) (Fides News Agency 12/8/2024)
