The Two “Blesseds” Congolese Community in Rome Want Pope Francis to Canonize

An account of Bakanja’s life indicates that his adamance to remove the sacramental despite the beating led the supervisor to tear off the scapula from his neck, before beating him up and chaining him with no medical attention, something that made his wounds infected. “He did not want me to pray to God … He killed me because I said my prayers … I stole nothing from him … It’s because I was praying to God.” Bakanja cried out, lying in a pool of his own blood. 

The supervisor sent him away to another village when the plantation’s inspector was visiting, but Bakanja hid in a nearby bush with a motive of presenting his grievances to the inspector. The horrified inspector wrote of his encounter with severely wounded and sick Bakanja, “I saw a man come from the forest with his back torn apart by deep, festering, malodorous wounds, covered with filth, assaulted by flies. He leaned on two sticks in order to get near me - he wasn't walking; he was dragging himself."

The inspector prevented the supervisor and his team from killing Bakanja, whom he took to his house for treatment. Sensing that his death was imminent, Bakanja told a friend, “God alone knows whether I will die of these wounds, or if I will live. If you see my mother, or if you go to the judge, or if you meet a priest, tell them that I am dying because I am a Christian.”

Trappist Missionaries who visited him in his last moments to offer the final sacraments urged him to forgive the supervisor. “When I am in heaven, I shall pray for him very much," Bakanja assured the Missionaries.

He lived on for six months and on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1909, Christians gathered around Bakanja’s house to pray for him. Though weak, an excited Bakanja walked outside in silence to meet the ecstatic crowd, rosary in his hand and the scapula round his neck, before walking back to the house and passing on soon after at the age of 22.

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On June 7, 1917, the remains of Bakanja were transferred to the Immaculate Conception Church in Bokote in DRC. In 1999, Bakanja was  proclaimed Patron of the Laity of the Republic of the Congo.

During his 1980 visit to DRC, Pope St. John Paul II said of Bakanja, “After having given all his free time to the evangelization of his brothers as a catechist, he did not hesitate to offer his life to God, strong in the courage he found in his faith and in the faithful recitation of the Rosary.”

Bakanja was beatified on April 24, 1994 during the special assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Africa.

Pope St. John Paul II was quoted as saying during the beatification, “In an Africa that is sorely tried by ethnic strife, your shining example is an encouragement to harmony and reconciliation among the children of the same heavenly Father. You showed brotherly love to all, without distinction of race or social class; you earned the esteem and respect of your companions, many of whom were not Christians. Thus, you show us the necessary way of dialogue among men.”

Among the institutes named in honor of Blessed Bakanja in Africa include Blessed Bakanja AMECEA College (BBAC) in Nairobi, Kenya - a regional theology seminary for the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) and Salesian Bakanja Center in DRC, a venue for homeless children.

Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta

Born on December 29, 1939 as the fourth child among six sisters, Anuarite Nengapeta ran away from home, against her mother’s approval, to join the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Kisiangani at the age of 20. Upon her profession, she assumed the name Marie-Clementine.

Anuarite became a victim of the 1964 Mulele rebellion across DRC, when Simba rebels, opposed to the westerners in the country and suspicious of the local religious men and women for cooperating with foreigners, kidnapped her alongside 45 other nuns and led them to a rebel camp. The attempts by the rebels’ leader, Colonel Pierre Olombe, to rape Anuarite were resisted with success.

Determined to have her by any means, Colonel Olombe forced Anuarite and her colleague, Sr. Bokuma Jean-Baptiste into a car, before going back to the house for the keys. The two tried to escape but were intercepted and beaten up. Sr. Bokuma who had suffered multiple fractures and fainted. The rebel leader ordered fellow rebels to stab Anuarite, before he (leader) shot her in the chest. “I forgive you, for you know not what you are doing," Anuarite told her attackers and died on December 1, 1964.

Anuarite’s attackers buried her in a common grave. Eight months later, her remains were exhumed and reburied. Her remains were exhumed again in December 1978 and moved to Isiro Cathedral in northeastern DRC.

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Pope St. John Paul II beatified Anuarite on August 15, 1985 during his visit to the country, an event that was attended by an estimated 60,000 people among them, Anuarite’s parents, Colonel Pierre Olombe who had become a devout Catholic and sought audience with the Pope to express his remorse, among other significant personalities including the then country’s President Mobutu Sese Seko.

Blessed Anuarite was the first Bantu woman to receive such a rank in the Catholic Church. She is the patron of the African Jesuit AIDS Network.

The diocese of Isiro-Niangara in DRC just celebrated the 55^th anniversary of Anuarite under the theme, “Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite, a model for young people” on the grounds where the construction of a shrine in her honor is underway.