Aid to the Church in Need’s call to the faithful to reflect this Lenten season on the persecution of Christians has taken on more urgency with the news that a Nigerian priest was found murdered on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.
Martyr
Deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, a new species of screech owl, dubbed the Xingu screech owl, was discovered by scientists in 2021. However, what caught the attention of many was the scientific name given to the bird: “Megascops stangiae.”
Sister Stang was sent on mission to the Brazilian Amazon in 1966 and worked closely with the Brazilian bishops’ Pastoral Land Commission in favor of land rights for the poor and for sustainable development in the region.
In late October, while thousands gathered across the Polish capital to commemorate the 1984 kidnapping and brutal murder of Solidarity chaplain Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko, patient work continued at the Jesuit order’s archive in Warsaw to document the fate of other communist-era victims.