Beatification of Burmese martyrs an encouragement to Church in Myanmar

“Catholicism flourished on the blood of martyrs in Myanmar.” said Card. Angelo Amato at the ceremony of beatification of Fr. Mario Vergara, PIME, and his catechist Isidore Ngei Ko Lat, first blessed of Myanmar, which took place on Saturday May 24 at Aversa the home diocese of Fr. Vergara, near Naples in Southern Italy. The two were killed in 1950 in Burma, out of hatred for the Christian faith. The cathedral of Aversa, was overflowing with people, and many who were not able to enter, attended the ceremony outside the Cathedral on giant screens.

The two were shot at dawn on 25 May 1950, on the banks of the Salween River, with gunfire heard in the nearby village. Their bodies, sealed in bags, were thrown into the river and never found. Card. Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the Eucharist which was concelebrated with 10 other bishops, two of which came from Myanmar: Mgr. Sotero Phamo and Msgr. Stephen Tjephe, Bishop Emeritus and Apostolic Administrator respectively of the Diocese of Loikaw. The Mass was also attended by some 200 priests of the Diocese of Aversa and many came specially from abroad or from other dioceses in Italy.

In his homily Card.Amato outlined some of the salient aspects of the beatified duo, highlighting how their sacrifice has had a prodigious missionary effect, creating a flowering of Catholicism in Myanmar calling Blessed Isidore as the first fruit of holiness in the Church of Myanmar.

The bishops of Myanmar have defined the beatification as "a great encouragement for the entire Catholic community in Myanmar to live their faith more in line with the Gospel and to be courageous and heroic witnesses’. 39-year old Father Vergara is the 19th PIME martyr and the fifth to be raised to the glory of the altars by the Church.

"May their heroic fidelity to Christ be an encouragement and example to missionaries and especially catechists in mission lands who carry out important and irreplaceable apostolic work, for which the whole Church is grateful," said the Pope Francis in making the announcement the previous Sunday at the recitation of the Regina Coeli at the St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. . "Gratitude" is also what fills the hearts of PIME missionaries and catechists working in Myanmar, the land where the two new blessed found martyrdom.

Their beatification, say the bishops of Burma, is "a great encouragement to the entire Catholic community in Myanmar to live their faith more in line with the Gospel and to witness it in a courageous and heroic way, following the example the catechist Isidore who did not hesitate to offer his life for the Gospel together with Fr. Vergara.”

In 1950, the area where they lived and worked, in the Diocese of Tounggo, in east-central Myanmar near the border with Thailand, has now become Shadaw Parish Church, in the Diocese of Loikaw, which in late April celebrated its silver jubilee. In Loikaw, Catholics are 25 per cent of the population, this in a country where Catholics are not even 1 per cent.

(Source: AsiaNews/ Fides Agency)