July 15, 2026: 50th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Fr. Rudolph Lunkenbein and Simon Bororo
(ANS – Meruri, Brazil – July 14, 2026) – July 15 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of the Servants of God Fr. Rudolph Lunkenbein, SDB, and Simon Bororo, who were killed at the Salesian mission in Meruri, Mato Grosso (Brazil).
The Salesian province of Campo Grande has organized a day of
thanksgiving and remembrance at the graves of these brothers to thank God for
all the blessings received since the day Fr. Lunkenbein and Simon sealed and
bore witness with their own blood to the covenant made with the Boe Bororo
people and with this blessed land of Meruri. Thanks will also be given for the
journey undertaken over the years toward the recognition of their martyrdom:
the diocesan process initiated on January 31, 2018, concluded and approved by
the Holy See in 2020; the preparation and submission of the Positio
super Martyrio to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the
Vatican on November 28, 2024; the favorable assessment of the Positio by
the theological censors on November 20, 2025. All that remains now is the ordinary
session of the cardinals and bishops of the dicastery.
July 15 therefore was a day of thanksgiving: for the
demarcated land, for the growth and strengthening of the people, for the
enduring memory, witness, and prophecy that have indelibly marked the history
and life of the Bororo people, the Salesian Congregation ,and the Church in
this part of Brazil.
On this day, together with Jesus, the Faithful Witness (Rev
1:5), we celebrated the victory of forgiveness and peace over evil and
arrogance, as Pope Francis said during the general audience on June 28, 2017:
“For there is indeed Someone among us who is stronger than evil, stronger than
the mafias, than dark conspiracies, than those who profit at the expense of the
desperate, than those who crush others with tyranny…. Someone who has always
heeded the voice of Abel’s blood crying out from the earth. Christians must
therefore always be found on the ‘other side’ of the world, the side chosen by
God: not persecutors, but the persecuted; not arrogant, but meek; not peddlers
of empty promises, but submissive to the truth; not impostors, but honest.”
Rudolph and Simon shine out among these witnesses to the
Gospel as signs of hope and seeds of peace.
Rudolph Lunkenbein was born on April 1, 1939, in
Döringstadt, Germany. From his teenage years, reading Salesian publications
awakened in him a desire to become a missionary. He was sent to Brazil as a
missionary and undertook his practical training period at the Meruri mission in
Mato Grosso, where he remained until 1965. He was ordained a priest on June 29,
1969, in Germany, choosing as his motto: “I have come to serve and to lay down
my life.” He returned to Meruri, where he was welcomed with great affection by
the Bororo people, who gave him the name “Koge Ekureu” (Golden Fish). In
1972, he helped found the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and fought to
defend indigenous reserves. On July 15, 1976, he was murdered in the courtyard
of the Salesian mission.
Simon Bororo, a friend of Fr. Lunkenbein, was born in
Meruri on October 27, 1937, and was baptized on November 7 of the same year. He
was a member of the group of Bororo who accompanied Salesian missionaries Fr. Pedro
Sbardellotto and Bro. Jorge Wörz to the first mission station among
the Xavantes at the Santa Teresina mission in 1957–1958. Between 1962 and 1964,
he helped build the first brick houses for the Bororo families of Meruri,
becoming a skilled bricklayer and devoting the rest of his life to this trade.
He was fatally wounded while trying to defend Fr. Lunkenbein’s life on July 15,
1976. Before he died, he forgave his attackers.
No comments:
Post a Comment