Third priest murdered in Colombia

Social justice news
September 2005

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Third priest murdered in Colombia
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Third priest murdered in Colombia
August 22, 2005—August proved to be a deadly month for Catholic clerics in Colombia. In just one week, three priests were murdered in the civil-war torn country. The last priest killed was Father Jesús Adrián Sánchez Coy. He was forced out of a religion class he was teaching on August 18 and shot at point blank range in front of students on the school's soccer field. The murder took place at the Camacho Angarita college in El Limón, a district of El Chaparral, in Tolima department, south of Bogotá, where Sánchez was parish priest.

It is believed the attack was committed by guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), and the presumed motive is the priest’s personal campaign to persuade young people not to join the guerrillas. The president of the Colombian bishops’ conference, Archbishop Luis Augusto Castro, described the murder as a "criminal and sacrilegious act" and prayed for "the forgiveness and conversion of those responsible."

Sánchez’ murder came three days’ after Fathers Vicente Rozo Bayona and Ramón Emilio Mora were murdered in the north-eastern diocese of Ocaña.

While this murder was also assumed to be the work of the FARC, in a surprise twist on August 19 Colombia’s second largest guerrilla group, the ELN (National Liberation Army), issued an admission of responsibility, and apologized, attributing the killing to an "intelligence error."

The UK's Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, (CAFOD) expressed its condolences to the Colombian church and the family of Sánchez and condemned "this further act of barbarism."

Francis McDonagh, CAFOD Latin America program officer, said, "No excuses can justify taking human life so lightly. The murder of Father Sánchez shows that the church is suffering with the rest of Colombian society from the intolerance that will murder a person for arguing for a point of view.

"The murder of three priests in one week illustrates the heavy price the Colombian Church is paying for its commitment to its people."

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