On Saturday, Pope Leo XIV said he “learned with sorrow” of the murder of Bishop Osório Cîtora Afonso in Quelimane, the city of which he was bishop in Mozambique.
According to a statement from the Holy See press office, the pontiff “joins in prayer with the people of the Dioceses and of Mozambique in this hour of bewilderment, so that the Lord may give them consolation, so that he may guard in his love every man and woman and stop the hand of violence.”
Cîtora Afonso, 54, was shot dead at his headquarters. He was appointed bishop of Quelimane only in July of 2025. At the time of his death, he was also the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Beira.
His murder is a shock to the Catholic Church in Mozambique, a former territory of Portugal which has seen an Islamist insurgency in the province of Cabo Delgado, which is to the north of Quelimane. Cîtora Afonso was the Secretary General of the bishops’ conference in the country before his appointment to the diocese, and often spoke to the press about the conflict in the north of the country.
Before returning to his homeland, he spent years in Italy, serving with the Consolata Missionaries in various posts and holding a position at the Dicastery for Evangelization in the Vatican.
The murder of a bishop brings attention to the persecution of Christians around the world. So far, it is an issue that Pope Leo has avoided speaking about in Spain (although it is early days in his journey there).
During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, what is considered the largest persecution of Catholics in Western Europe took place. Tens of thousands of Christians were killed for their faith, including over 6,800 clerics, including 13 bishops. Over 2,200 of these martyrs have been beatified, and 11 of them have been canonized.
Pope Leo himself beatified over 120 Spanish martyrs in December, and shortly before his visit to Spain – on April 27 – he approved the future beatification of 47 people martyred in Catalonia, where he will visit its capital, Barcelona, this week.
The Spanish Civil War still haunts Spain.
These martyrs were mostly murdered by the Republican side, which was mostly anti-religious. The Nationalist side – led by General Francisco Franco – was supported by the Catholic Church, which saw the Nationalists as the only thing protecting Christians.
Franco won, and ruled the nation as a dictatorship until he died in 1975. The political parties in Spain are still affiliated with these two factions.
Although he hasn’t yet touched on the Spanish Civil War, Leo did implicitly refer to the ongoing tension during his address on Saturday.
“For the love of truth, I invite everyone to set aside the divisive and polarizing narratives of your societal reality and history, so as to overcome sterile simplifications through the fruitful appreciation of complexity,” the pope said.
“Appreciating and studying complexity, learning not to deny it but to embrace it as a blessing, and fleeing from identity-based approaches that seem to explain everything yet only fill the world with ‘ghosts’ and enemies are the tasks of those who are heirs of a great history,” he added.
However, the latest murder in Mozambique shows that the persecution of Christians is not just history.
Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch was appointed president of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) last year, by Pope Leo.
Earlier this month, he told ACN there are more martyrs now than in the first centuries of Church history.
“Dictators do not distinguish between Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, or Protestants,” he said on June 5.
“The blood that has been shed unites Christians beyond their divisions,” Koch added.
The charity Open Doors says more than 388 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith in the world, mostly in Asia and Africa, but also in parts of Latin America.
The post-Christian progressivism long-ascendant in Europe and across the West, however, has held contrary views on marriage, sexuality, gender identity, assisted suicide, and other medical issues. This is leading to social and legal abuse against people holding traditional Christian views in many Western countries including Spain.
The challenges this raises extend beyond Europe and the West, and into the global south and east, where Western exploitation is a fact of life and Western aid is often contingent upon countries’ willingness to accommodate 21st-century progressive morals.
Pope Francis, Leo’s predecessor, called the process “ideological colonization” – a stark term describing a complex web of socio-and-geopolitical phenomena that boil down to coercive cultural and social engineering.
Leo is treading carefully in Spain, which is one of the flashpoints of this present crisis. He is seeking a deeper reconciliation and collaboration among the various elements in society.
“In reality, the message of peace, which at present unfortunately strikes some as naïve and others as confrontational, is welcomed by those who do not shut themselves off in preconceived ideologies, but are rather open to the truth,” he said to the people of Spain on June 6.
It is possible Pope Leo might have to fight with the “ghosts” of the Spanish Civil War not only in Spain, but in places around the world in the 21st century.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome
