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Nigerian Priest: Another Victim of Violence
Protests
Exploiting Religion, Says L'Osservatore Romano
ROME, FEB. 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).-
A Nigerian priest murdered at his parish was another victim of the violent
protests, ostensibly linked to religious motives, that have erupted in the wake
of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.
Father Michael Gajere "is the new victim of the climate of violence and
intolerance that seems to be spreading around the world," L'Osservatore Romano
said in its Italian edition today. "He has given witness to the Gospel with the
supreme gift of his life."
Father Gajere was killed last Saturday, less than two weeks after the Feb. 5
murder of Father Andrea Santoro, an Italian missionary, in Turkey.
This is "violence provoked by yet another attempt to exploit religion for
political purposes," Fides reported local Church sources in Nigeria as saying.
A month ago, Father Gajere arrived to St. Rita's Parish in Bulunkutu, a
neighborhood in the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria.
"The priest was brutally slain by a group of armed men, after heroically having
saved the life of the altar boys present in the parish," L'Osservatore Romano
reported.
Churches burned
Besides taking the life of the priest, the aggressors killed some 15 Christians.
Before firing, they asked their victims to speak in the local dialect, warning
them that they would be considered "colonized" if they were unable to do it.
"Stores and public buildings were assaulted and devastated, various churches
were burned, some of the faithful were killed while praying, other Christians
were lynched on the streets," the Vatican's semiofficial newspaper reported.
According to the Fides agency, the mob also torched the local bishop's
residence.
L'Osservatore Romano contended: "The cruel violence in Nigeria has been
encouraged by the social context in which the local political motives --
particularly the tension between the majority-Islamic populations in the north
of the country and the president of the Federal Republic, originally from the
south and Catholic -- have been mixed with the emotional/religious reactions
linked to the case of the cartoons offensive to Islam."
Fides reported that the violence was condemned by the secretary general of the
Supreme Court of Nigeria for Islamic Affairs, Lateef Adegbite.
Adegbite declared: "It is not Muslim to demand the life of innocent people and
give way to material destruction. The non-Muslims of Nigeria have nothing to do
with the publication of the cartoons. We call on Christians to keep calm and to
avoid retaliation for this unfortunate episode. We should consider it a wild
initiative of Muslims acting against the principles of Islam."
Today, Christian mobs rampaged through the southern city of Onitsha, burning
mosques and killing several people in an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence that
followed deadly protests against the caricatures of Mohammed.