After the attacks of Dablo in Burkina Faso, Pope Francis telephoned Monsignor Theophile Nare, to express his support, reported Lefaso.net (Edouard K. Samboe).
On the occasion of the 3rds Plenary Assembly of the Bishops of West Africa, which began in Ouagadougou on May 14, Monsignor Nare spoke about the attack and the murder of Abbot Simeon Yampa and five of his parishioners.
Ordained Bishop two months ago, Monsignor Nare acknowledged that he took the headship of the diocese in “a tormented context,” but he thanked the Pope and his fellow priests for their support after the attack. “Up to now we had not seen an attack of such breadth directed against a Catholic church (. . . ) 0f course from time to time there were threats to the catechists’ place in villages, but not yet such an attack,” reported the same source.
He said “some twenty persons surprised the community in prayer. When the parish priest tried to shelter the children of the choir, he was shot (. . . ). Then they overpowered those that couldn’t flee, of whom the catechist, keeping them lying down. This is how the five other Christians were murdered, the books and material for worship burnt, the sacristy burnt, the tabernacle shot at (. . . ) and they took four mopeds.”
The Bishop asked Catholics not to give in to panic and vengeance, but to “pray for those who kill us.”
A priest was also killed in Burkina Faso, but it seems that it was about personal vengeance and not a terrorist act.
Father Fernando Hernandez, a Spanish Salesian, was stabbed, and Father Germain Plakoo-Mlapa was wounded on May 17, 2019, by the former cook of the Salesian pre-noviciate at Bobo-Dioulasso, in Burkina Faso, reports the Salesian Website.
Another Spanish Salesian, Father Cesar Fernandez was murdered last February 15.
The Provincial Vicar of the Salesians, Father Jesus Benoit Badji, explained that the “former cook of the pre-novitiate called TOE had been fired not long ago.”
He entered “the community while fellow Salesians were at table around 12:30 pm and attacked them with a machete.”
