As the Church marks the close of 2025, new figures reveal a sobering reality for those serving the Gospel in vulnerable regions of the world. According to Vatican News, in the annual report released on December 30 by the Vatican’s Fides News Agency, seventeen Catholic missionaries and pastoral workers lost their lives this year while engaged in service to the Church.
The report, issued during the Jubilee of Hope, documents deaths across multiple continents and reflects an increase from the fourteen missionaries killed in 2024. Fides notes that between 2000 and 2025, a total of 626 missionaries or pastoral workers have been killed worldwide.
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The victims in 2025 included ten priests, two seminarians, two catechists, two religious sisters, and one layman. Fides explains that its definition of “missionary” encompasses all Catholics involved in pastoral work who were killed in violent circumstances, regardless of whether their deaths meet the formal criteria for martyrdom.
Africa remains the most dangerous region for missionary service. Ten of the seventeen deaths occurred on the African continent, with Nigeria accounting for half of them. The countries affected also included Burkina Faso, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Of those killed in Africa, six were priests, two were seminarians, and two were catechists.
Speaking to Fides, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, Secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization, described the situation as “a source of profound sadness” and “also a bit of shame,” according to the report. He noted that Nigeria is “one of the countries with the most religious population in the world” and emphasized that believers of all faiths must reject violence committed in the name of religion.
“We must all reject any justification for using religion to perpetrate violent acts, even to the point of taking people’s lives,” the Archbishop said, according to Fides. He also stressed that many of the victims were not seeking danger but were killed during ordinary daily activities in places such as seminaries and schools. Archbishop Nwachukwu further called on the Nigerian government to strengthen protections for innocent civilians and improve national security.
Beyond Africa, the Americas recorded four missionary deaths in 2025. Two priests were killed in Mexico and the United States, and two religious sisters lost their lives in Haiti. Asia saw the deaths of one priest in Myanmar and one layman, a teacher in the Philippines. Europe recorded one priest killed in Poland.
Fides highlighted several individual stories to underscore the human cost behind the statistics. Among them was Emmanuel Alabi, a young Nigerian seminarian who died in July after being forced on a march by kidnappers following an attack on his minor seminary. The report also recalled the deaths of Sisters Evanette Onezaire and Jeanne Voltaire of the Little Sisters of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who were killed by armed gang members in Haiti in March.
In Asia, Fides identified Father Donald Martin as the first Burmese Catholic priest killed amid the ongoing conflict in Myanmar. According to the agency, his body was found mutilated within his parish church complex in February.
The annual report serves as both a record and a call to prayer, reminding the global Church that the proclamation of the Gospel continues to carry grave risks for many. As Fides underscores, these men and women died not as heroes seeking recognition, but as servants faithfully carrying out their mission in places marked by instability, poverty, and violence.
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