In Memoriam: 17 missionaries and pastoral workers worldwide suffered violent deaths in 2025
Emmanuel Alabi won’t appear on anyone’s end-of-year list of notable deaths of 2025. Nor will Fr. Alloyce Cheruiyot Bett or Sister Evanette Onezaire.
But while their passing won’t be noted by any mainstream media’s list of celebrity deaths, their names do appear in a report that a Vatican agency routinely issues at year’s end.
According to Fides, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, 17 Catholic missionaries and pastoral workers were killed during the past 12 months. They include priests, women religious, seminarians, and lay persons.
Emmanuel Alabi was one of the youngest – and was one of 10 priests, seminarians, and catechists in Africa whose lives were cut short in service of the Gospel in 2025. Five of the 10 were from Nigeria. Two missionaries died in Burkina Faso, one in Sierra Leone, one in Kenya and one in Sudan.
Alabi’s death came about in the wake of a July 10 attack on the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in Ivhianokpodi in the Diocese of Auchi, in Nigeria’s Edo State.
The attackers “came in large numbers, and it was impossible for the guards to stop them,” explained Bishop Gabriel Dunia of Auchi in a call with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). A security guard was killed, and three seminarians — between 14 and 17 years old – were abducted.
ACN has continuously supported the formation of priests and has provided Mass stipends for priests in the Diocese of Auchi for many years.
Two of the three seminarians were released, but Alabi died of starvation and injuries. He “felt exhausted during the forced march imposed by his kidnappers and was unable to continue the journey with them,” said Fr. Jude Sule, diocesan chancellor. “As a result, he was left at a specific location. When the kidnappers returned the next day to collect him, they found him dead.”
Meanwhile, in Kenya, Fr. Alloyce Cheruiyot Bett was celebrating Mass on May 22 for a small Christian community in the Western Highlands of the East African country, when gunmen entered and fired shots. One of them hit Fr. Bett in the neck, killing him instantly.
Police said they arrested six people, and while it is suspected that the incident was an attempted robbery, a police spokesperson emphasized that Fr. Bett’s murder was in no way connected to the cattle thefts or other forms of banditry in the area. He likely was killed because he was denouncing that banditry, said the Fides report.
In the Americas
Four missionaries gave their lives in the Americas — in the United States, Mexico and Haiti.
Fr. Arul Carasala, parish priest of SS. Peter and Paul in Seneca, Kansas, was shot on April 3 while he was in his rectory. According to initial reports, the priest was killed by an elderly man who was unknown to parishioners.
Ordained in India in 1994, Fr. Carasala served in Kansas since 2004. He became a U.S. citizen in 2011.
Shortly before he retired as Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas, Joseph F. Naumann described the murder as a “senseless act of violence” that left the community “in mourning for the loss of a beloved priest.”
“Fr. Carasala was a devoted and zealous pastor who faithfully served our Archdiocese for over 20 years,” said Archbishop Naumann in a post on social media.
The priest played a key role in helping foreign-born missionaries become enculturated, according to Fides. Many priests from India stayed with him for a couple of months before going to work in parishes.
In Haiti, Sisters Evanette Onezaire and Jeanne Voltaire, of the Little Sisters of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, were murdered by armed gangs northeast of Port-au-Prince. According to local media , the sisters were working at a school in Mirebalais and had taken refuge in a house with a girl during attacks on March 31. However, members of the armed gangs entered the building, opened fire, and killed all those present.
Asian witnesses
Of the two priests killed in Asia, one was in Myanmar and the other was in the Philippines.
Fr. Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, a 44-year-old priest of the Archdiocese of Mandalay, was the first Burmese priest killed in Myanmar’s nearly five-year-old civil conflict. His lifeless body, mutilated and disfigured by stab wounds, was found February 14 by parishioners on the grounds of his parish Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, in the Sagaing region.
The bloody manner in which the killing was carried out suggests a targeted attack for reasons that have yet to be determined, Fides said.
Ordained in 2018, Fr. Martin dedicated himself to humanitarian assistance to displaced people scattered throughout the territory, bringing them spiritual consolation and material aid.
“The Sagaing region is one of the areas where the fighting is most intense,” Regina Lynch, executive president of ACN International, said at the time.
In the Philippines, Mark Christian Malaca, a teacher at St. Stephen Academy in the city of Laur, on the island of Luzon, was shot dead on November 4 by unknown assailants in the village of San Juan, where he lived. According to initial investigations, the killers, wearing black jackets, helmets, and face masks, approached and fired several shots at the victim. Malaca was known for his faith and his commitment to education.
Europe
The only priest killed in Europe was Fr. Grzegorz Dymek, 58, who had been serving in the parish of Our Lady of Fatima since its foundation in 1998. The church is located in Kłobuck, a town in southern Poland on the outskirts of Częstochowa.
On the evening of February 13, police were alerted after hearing screams coming from the rectory. When they arrived at the scene, they found the lifeless body of the priest and a man who had attempted to flee. The man was a 52-year-old former police officer, dismissed in 2001 for disciplinary reasons, who later confessed to the murder.
Fr. Dymek had been strangled, apparently during a robbery attempt. The priest had recently announced that almost 20,000 euros had been collected for the needs of the parish.
Fides said that from 2000 to 2025, 626 Catholic missionaries were killed worldwide.
—John Burger
