Vatican records 17 missionaries killed worldwide in 2025

Pope Leo mourned the missionaries, saying ‘their witness lives on as a prophecy of the victory of good over evil’.

Almost a third of the Catholic missionaries killed last year died in Nigeria, according to the latest Church statistics.

The annual report from the Pontifical Mission Societies’ Agenzia Fides said that 17 missionaries were killed across the world in 2025. Of these, 10 died in Africa and five of those in Nigeria, with the others in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.  The 10 dead were six priests, two seminarians and two catechists.

The Americas saw four missionaries killed in 2025: one priest in Mexico and another in the United States, and two religious sisters in Haiti, members of the Order of Saint Teresa murdered in March by gang members. In Asia, a priest in Myanmar and a lay teacher in the Philippines lost their lives, while in Europe one priest was killed in Poland.

Pope Leo mourned the missionaries in his message accompanying the report, saying “their witness lives on as a prophecy of the victory of good over evil”.

“In a world marked by hatred, violence and war, it is a hope filled with immortality because, even though they have been killed in body, no one can silence their voice or erase the love they have shown,” he said. A total of 626 missionaries and pastoral workers have been killed since 2000, according to Vatican records.

The report said its figure “does not refer only to missionaries and pastoral workers ‘ad gentes’ in the strict sense, but considers the term ‘missionary’ in a broader context, encompassing all Catholics who were involved in some way in pastoral works and ecclesial activities and who died violently, even if they did not die expressly ‘in hatred of the faith’”.

“These are often witnesses and missionaries who voluntarily offered their lives to Christ until the very end,” it said.

The deaths in Africa reflect growing instability across the continent, with violent crime and cases of persecution combining to threaten Christian communities even as the Church continues to grow. Violence in Nigeria has been the subject of particular controversy and allegations of “Christian genocide”.

Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, secretary of the Section of First Evangelisation for the Dicastery for Evangelisation who is himself Nigerian, said that “all of this is a source of profound sadness”. 

Those who died were not trying to be heroes, he said, but were struck by violence in their daily lives. He urged the Nigerian government to do more to protect innocent people and improve security across the country.

Two priests were injured in an attack on a presbytery in Nigeria’s Nasarawa State on 30 December.  Suspected bandits broke into the parish house of St Rita Catholic Church around 2:30 a.m, assaulting Fr Comas Baye and Fr Chris Pever while another priest escaped injury.

Fr Baye reportedly suffered a partial stroke while Fr Pever had his left arm fractured and underwent surgery after both were admitted to Nativity Catholic Hospital in Abuja. 

The Knights of St John International condemned the attack, calling it “heinous, barbaric, and reprehensible” and warning that it reflects worsening insecurity around Abuja and neighbouring states and the extension of violence against places of worship and religious leaders. They urged security agencies to investigate and apprehend the perpetrators and for the government to strengthen security around religious institutions.

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