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Vatican Radio reports that 26 Catholic priests, religious, seminarians, and lay catechists have been killed in 2014.
Most of the victims (14) died in the Americas, marking the 6th consecutive year that the New World has accounted for most of the Catholic pastoral workers killed on the job. Four priests and a seminarian were killed in Mexico; two priests in the US, one in Canada, and five priests and a seminarian in South American countries.
In Africa, many the pastoral workers were killed by the Ebola virus after tending to other victims of the epidemic.
Figures supplied by the Fides news service show 17 priests, 6 women religious, one religious brother, a seminarian, and a lay catechist died while serving the Church during the past year.
The Fides figures do not include several priests who have disappeared and whose fate is still unknown. Among them are Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, who was apparently kidnapped in Syria in 2013; Father Alexis Prem Kumar, the Jesuit kidnapped in Afghanistan in June of this year; and three Assumptionist priest who were abducted in the Congo in October 2012.