The blood of the martyrs: seed of the Church. The Names of Pastoral Workers, Priests, Men and Women Religious and Lay Catholics killed during 2010

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Once again this year, Fides publishes an annual document of all the pastoral workers who lost their lives in a violent manner over the course of the last 12 months. According to information in our possession, during 2010, 23 pastoral care workers were killed: one Bishop, 15 priests, one male religious, one religious sister, two seminarians and three lay people.

Analysing the list for each continent, again this year the place most affected, with an extremely elevated number of deaths is AMERICA, bathed with the blood of 15 pastoral care workers: 10 priests, one male religious, one seminarian and three lay people. Following is ASIA, with one Bishop, four priests and one religious sister killed. The least affected was AFRICA, where one priests and one seminarian violently lost their lives.

Fides' list does not only include missionaries ad gentes in the strict sense but all pastoral care workers who died violent deaths. We do not propose to use the term “martyrs” since it is up to the Church to judge their possible merits and also because of the scarcity of available information in most of cases, with regard to their life and even the circumstances of their death. In this regard, we register, in this year coming to an end, the opening of the beatification process of the Fidei donum priest Fr Daniele Badiali, a native of the diocese of Faenza (Italy), killed in Peru in 1997, and the beatification of Polish Father Jerzy Popieluszko, martyr, killed in hatred of the faith on 20 October, 1984, near Wroclawek, Poland.

Here is the list provided by Fides. The full document can be found here.

N°	Name and Surname	Nationality	Institute or Diocese	Date and place of death
1.	Father José Luis Parra Puerto	Mexico	Diocesan	17/2 – Mexico
2.	Father Dejair Gonçalves de Almeida	Brazil	Diocesan	16/3 – Volta Redonda (Brazil)
3.	Epaminondas Marques da Silva	Brazil	Laity	16/3 – Volta Redonda (Brazil)
4.	Luis Enrique Pineda	Colombia	Salesian Coadjutor (SDB)	20/3 – Bogotà
5.	Father Román de Jesús Zapata	Colombia	Diocesan	24/3 – Turbo (Colombia)
6.	Father Esteban Robert Wood	USA	Diocesan	28/4 – Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela
7.	Father Peter Bombacha	India	Diocesan	28/4 – Baboola (Mumbai, India)
8.	Father Rubens Almeida Gonçalves	Brazil	Diocesan	21/5 – Brasilia (Brazil)
9.	Bishop Luigi Padovese	Italy	Apostolic Vicar  of Anatolia	3/6 - Iskenderun (Turkey)
10.	Mario Dayvit Pinheiro Reis	Brazil	Seminarian	4/7 – Sao Luis (Brazil)
11.	Father Joseph Zhang Shulai	China	Vicar General, Diocese  of Ningxia	5/7 – Wuhai (Mongolia, China)
12.	Sister Maria Wei Yanhui	China	Diocesan Congregation	5/7 – Wuhai (Mongolia, China)
13.	Father Carlos Salvador Wotto	Mexico	Diocesan	28/7 – St. Oaxaca (Mexico)
14.	Father Herminio Calero Alumia	Colombia	Diocesan	20/8 – Quintanares (Colombia)
15.	Father Linán Ruiz Morales	Puerto Rico	OFM	27/8 – Lima (Perù)
16.	Ananias Aguila	Peru	Laity	27/8 - Lima (Perù)
17.	Julien Kénord	Haiti	Caritas worker	8/10 - Port-au-Prince (Haiti)
18.	Father Wasim Sabieh	Iraq	Diocesan	31/10 – Baghdad (Iraq)
19.	Father Thaier Saad Abdal	Iraq	Diocesan	31/10 – Baghdad (Iraq)
20.	Father Christian Bakulene	D.R.Congo	Diocesan	8/11 – Mapere (D.R. Congo)
21	Father Bernardo Muniz Rabelo Amaral	Brasile	Diocesan	20/11 – Brazil
22	Nicolas Eklou Komla	Togo	Jesuit Seminarian (SJ)	5/12 – Kinshasa (D.R. Congo)
23.	Father Miroslaw Karczewski	Polonia	OFM Conv.	6/12 – S.Domingo L.C. (Ecuador)

Te Deum laudamus, te Deum confitemur, te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus

O GOD, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. the white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.