by Gianni Valente
Aden – Sister Reginette and Sister Margarita were from Rwanda, Sister Anselma from India, and Sister Judith from Kenya. The four Missionaries of Charity Sisters were murdered on March 4, 2016, by a group of jihadists who attacked the nursing home in Aden run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa, killing twelve staff members of various nationalities and religions. Father Tom Uzhunnalil of the Salesians of Don Bosco was kidnapped by the terrorists and released in September 2017 after a long period of captivity.
The Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia today commemorates the 10th anniversary of the martyrdom of the four nuns, Bishop Paolo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia, will preside over a Eucharistic liturgy in their memory at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi.
“The commemoration of this anniversary is a source of hope at a time when the entire Gulf region is experiencing a serious conflict,” Bishop Martinelli emphasized in a statement marking the anniversary. “The Missionaries of Charity Sisters,” he added, “gave their lives, and some of them are still present in Yemen today, where they care for the poorest without distinction, thus bearing witness to the love of Christ that overcomes all barriers. When we look to them, we feel encouraged to be peacemakers in this country.”
The four nuns murdered ten years ago primarily cared for elderly and sick Muslims at their institution. The local population loved them and “admired their way of serving others without regard to religious affiliation, but only to the decision to give preference to those in greatest need,” their then-bishop and Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia, the Capuchin friar Paul Hinder, emphasized shortly after the massacre.
“The witness of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters murdered in Aden,” said Bishop Martinelli, also a member of the Capuchin Order, today, “continues to nourish the life of our Church and inspires us to live our faith with joy and commitment every day. As Bishop Paul Hinder wrote shortly after the events of 2016: ‘We ask the four martyrs to intercede for Yemen and the entire Middle East, so that peace may prevail and the violence may end.’”
The photos circulated shortly after the massacre also showed the bodies of the nuns. It was clearly visible that two of them were wearing kitchen aprons over their religious habits at the time of their martyrdom—the kind worn for tasks that involve getting one’s hands dirty, so as not to ruin the religious habit.
Bishop Tonino Bello, the bishop from Apulia who died in 1993, regularly implored the Lord to silence “for a few years the theologians and all the orators” who do nothing but talk in the Church community. In his view, the Church’s mission needed precisely the image of this apron: “It is the apron,” he repeatedly emphasized, “that we as a Church must put on. We really must tie the apron around ourselves.” A powerful image, chosen in reference to the cloth Christ tied around his waist before washing his disciples’ feet before his Passion. “The Church with the apron,” Tonino Bello added, “is the Church that Jesus prefers because that is how he himself did it.” The nuns in Yemen were killed while wearing the aprons with which they cared for poor, elderly, and sick Muslims every day out of love for Christ. They were not proselytizing. They disinfected wounds and offered moments of consolation to weary lives.
The hatred that killed their defenseless bodies was baseless, like the hatred that brought Christ to the cross. “The closer the Church is to Jesus Christ, the more she shares in his suffering,” the late Comboni missionary and Bishop Camillo Ballin, then Apostolic Vicar of Northern Arabia, told Fides when he spoke about the four nuns murdered in Aden. And whoever draws near to Christ, Bishop Ballin added, “shares in his suffering and death in order to also share in the glory of his victory.”
The Missionaries of Charity Sisters, founded by Saint Teresa of Calcutta, have been present in Yemen since 1973 at the invitation of the then-government of North Yemen. The sisters’ home for the elderly in Aden was also opened on March 25, 1992, at the government’s request. Even today, according to a statement from the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia, “the presence of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters in Yemen, through their service to the weakest and poorest, remains a humble yet powerful sign of hope. Two communities of the Missionaries of Charity continue their ministry in Hodeidah and Sana’a.”
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