Nigeria: a priest hacked to death, a Mass stormed, the faithful abducted

In Nigeria, a priest has been murdered with a machete and a Sunday Mass stormed by armed men, who abducted several of the faithful. Within a few days a sanctuary was profaned in the midst of the Holy Sacrifice, a shepherd killed on a roadside, and seminarians torn from their own.

On Sunday 2 August, at about half past eight, at least seven armed men burst in during Mass at the church of Saint Joseph in Inoyi, at Affa, in Enugu State, in the south-east of the country. After taking several people hostage, they made for a nearby forest, while the faithful fled under torrential rain. A catechist has since been freed in the course of a police operation; a seminarian, Lawrence Chidera Igbo, and a parishioner remain in the hands of the kidnappers.

To this tragedy is added the announcement, by the Diocese of Lokoja, of the murder of Father Samuel Opeyemi Oyetoro. His body, bearing machete wounds, was found on a road in Ajaokuta, in Kogi State, central Nigeria; discovered as early as late July, the killing was confirmed only in recent days. On the day of his death the priest was offering Mass in a neighbouring parish, standing in for a pastor away on a two-week leave. « We entrust our beloved priest to the infinite mercy of God, giving thanks for his faithful ministry, his selfless love and his unwavering dedication to the People of God », the diocese declared in its statement. The governor of Kogi State, Ahmed Ododo, called the murder « an atrocious and unacceptable act ».

Not all is mourning: a seminarian, Kelvin Ochai, abducted on 29 July from the residence of the Bishop of Otukpo, Bishop Michael Ekwoyi Apochi, managed to escape on the 31st and was reunited with his family unharmed. According to local sources, further violence struck the north-west that same Sunday, in Zamfara State, where members of the security forces were killed and many civilians abducted.

The Church has never measured such crimes by the balance of power. « Thou shalt not kill »: the Catechism of the Council of Trent recalls that immediately after the flood the first prohibition God made to men concerned murder, with that dread word, « I will require the blood of your lives at the hand of every one that shall have shed it ». The blood of a priest spilled on a road, that of the faithful seized at the foot of the altar, cry out to the God who requires an account of it. And if the Lord promises the peacemakers that they shall be called children of God, those who break into a church, weapons in hand, in the middle of Mass, rank themselves instead among the workers of death.

We do not yet know the motive of these attacks, and we shall not guess it in the place of those who will establish it. But we know what we owe: to pray for the murdered priest and his family, as his diocese asks, and for the deliverance of those who remain captive.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the Fifth Commandment « Thou shalt not kill »; Genesis IX, 5; the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, the beatitude of the peacemakers.