22 Catholic missionaries were killed around the world in 2021, half of them in Africa, according to a report released by the Fides News Agency and distributed Thursday by the Vatican press office.
Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, reported that of the 22 missionaries killed in 2021, 13 were priests, two were women religious, one was a male religious, and six were lay people. Half of the total were killed in Africa: seven priests, two religious sisters, and two lay people.
In its report, Fides explains that their annual list “has not only included missionaries ad gentes in the strict sense, but has tried to register all Catholic Christians engaged in some way in a pastoral activity who died violently, not expressly ‘in hatred of the faith’.” According to the report, seven missionaries were murdered in Latin America, three in Asia, and one in Europe.
“In recent years, Africa and Latin America have alternated in the first place of this tragic ranking. From 2000 to 2020, according to our data, 536 missionaries were killed world-wide,” says the report.