Faith

Some of the seventeen who laid down their lives in service of the mission Church in 2025.

Propagation of the Faith

No One Has Greater Love Than This

Friday, April 3, 2026Faith

Every year, Fides News Agency, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies at our Vatican office, publishes a list of pastoral workers killed in the missions. For 2025, the roll includes the names of 17 souls -- 10 priests, 2 religious sisters, 2 seminarians, 2 catechists, and 1 lay person.
This past year's breakdown by continent shows that Africa is the most dangerous place to serve the Church, with ten of the deaths occurring there. Last year, the Americas topped the list; in recent years, the two continents have alternated being at the top of this tragic tally.
One death touched both continents. Father Matthew Eya was a parish priest of Saint Charles Church in the southeastern part of Nigeria. He was returning to his parish when two armed men on motorcycles overtook his car, shot out his tires, and then shot Father several times. Witness accounts say it was an assassination, not a failed kidnapping attempt.
Father Matthew came to the priesthood by an unusual route. He was born into a non-Catholic family, and thanks to an encounter with the local parish priest, he became interested in Catholicism. At the age of fourteen, he was baptized, confirmed, and received his first communion. In his late teens, he worked as a teacher to earn money to attend a minor seminary, where it was assumed he would be far behind other students of his age who had attended Catholic Schools. He placed first in the entrance exam. The intercontinental connections come in because a Nigerian priest who had ministered in the United States not only contributed his own funds but also engaged the help of a woman from Ecorse, Michigan, in sponsoring Father Matthew's seminary education. Father Matthew was ordained after attending Bigard Seminary, which is funded by our donors to the Society of St. Peter the Apostle. He was 39 when he was killed.
Fides additionally lists the details of the lives of those pastoral workers who lost their lives during robberies, home invasions, roadside attacks, and kidnappings. It goes on too long.
Some will speculate that these people lost their lives to random violence or illness -- robberies gone awry, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I would submit that a missionary is where he or she is supposed to be, that is, where God sent them to serve Him.
As we celebrate Easter, please pray for the repose of the souls of those named in 2025's record and for those who will most certainly follow in their faith-filled footsteps in 2026.
No one has greater love than this.

- Maureen Crowley Heil is Director of Programs and Development for the Pontifical Mission Societies, Boston.