Fides, the Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, reports that 22 pastoral care workers were killed worldwide in 2013, almost double the number who were killed the year before. For the fifth consecutive year, Latin America had the highest number of such deaths. In 2013, 19 priests, one religious sister and two lay persons were killed. Of these, in the Americas 15 priests were killed (seven in Colombia; four in Mexico; one each in Brazil, Venezuela, Panama and Haiti). In Africa one priest was killed in Tanzania, and one religious sister and one lay pastoral care worker were killed in Madagascar and Nigeria respectively. In Asia one priest in India and one in Syria were killed, and in the Philippines one lay pastoral worker was killed. In Europe a priest was killed in Italy. Most of the pastoral care workers in 2013 were killed during robbery attempts. The status of a number of others is still undetermined. In Syria, the fates of Orthodox nuns abducted from the monastery of Santa Tecla, the Italian Jesuit Paul Dall’Oglio and the two metropolitan Bishops of Aleppo—the Greek Orthodox Boulos al-Yazigi and the Syrian Orthodox Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim—remain unknown.

This article appears in January 20-27 2014.