The South Sudanese Catholic Bishop goes on to describe Fr. Yugue as “a beloved young Priest in the Catholic Tombura-Yambio who had dedicated his life to serving the people and the communities that the diocese sent him to serve.”
“He was deeply committed to serving the displaced and suffering people affected by the ongoing communal conflict in Nagero and Tombura Counties,” he adds.
Bishop Hiiboro further says, “Like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior who gave up his life on the cross, shedding his blood for our salvation, Fr. Yugue and his beloved driver and friend Mr. Gbeko, too have shed their blood while serving the people they were sent to serve. As our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by some of his very own, the people he was sent to serve, Fr. Yugue has been martyred by some of his very own.”
“The martyrdom of a priest is something new in our diocese and community. That is why we are all shocked to the core. But the early history of our church is full of the stories of martyrdom. Our church was built on the foundation of the blood of the martyrs,” the Local Ordinary of CDTY says in his May 22 statement.
He continues, “It started with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself who gave up his life for us his Church. Of the 12 disciples that Jesus chose to succeed him, most were martyred by the very people they were sent to serve. Fr. Yugue has become part of that exclusive group.”
“Because of the brutal manner we can imagine, in which Fr. Yugue and his driver Gbeko died, many of us have been calling for revenge. Where does the Church stand in this? The Church gets its answer in the scriptures,” Bishop Hiiboro says, referencing Christ's response to Peter when he took his sword and struck one of the people who came to arrest him, “put down your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me.”
The Local Ordinary of CDTY says, “We believe that it is the same message that Fr. Yugue is repeating to us at the moment. He is advising us to put our swords into their sheaths. He is asking us the exact question that Jesus asked Peter.”
“We believe that no matter how weak and vulnerable the Church may look now, God is in complete control and that the battle is the Lord's. God will never abandon his Church. God is going to use this trying moment to make his Church even stronger and vibrant than ever,” Bishop Hiiboro says.
He says. “Although the Church permits the act of self-defense, the act of revenge is forbidden. As humans, in situations as this, many of us believe that a sense of justice and closure could be achieved by taking the law into our hands. Indeed, the grief, anger, loss or contempt that we have for the perpetrator is making us believe that the act of revenge should be the best way forward. But the Church says NO to that.”
The Catholic Church leader, who has been at the helm of CDTY since his Episcopal Consecration in June 2008 says, “We belong to the country of laws. And it must be so! We have to trust the legal system of our nation. But we have to! Let justice for the death of the Priest and his driver run its course through the legal system. Let us allow the government to do its job.”
