DHAKA: A Catholic priest has disappeared in Bangladesh, police said on Wednesday (Nov 29), as the Muslim-majority country stepped up security ahead of a landmark visit by Pope Francis that follows a rise in extremist attacks on religious minorities.
Walter William Rosario, a 40-year-old priest and headmaster of a Catholic school, went missing on Monday in a village in northern Bangladesh where suspected extremists last year hacked a Catholic grocer to death.
Gerves Rosario, bishop of the nearby city of Rajshahi, said he believed the priest had been kidnapped and that Catholics in the region were deeply worried.
"He was organising for around 300 Catholics to travel to Dhaka to see the Pope and attend his holy mass. But his disappearance has marred their joy. They don't want to go to Dhaka any more," he said.
News of his disappearance comes as Bangladesh tightens security in the capital Dhaka ahead of the arrival Thursday of the first pontiff to visit Bangladesh in more than three decades.
Police in Natore district said they had launched a major search for Rosario after his family reported him missing.
"He has been missing since late Monday. His mobile has been switched off," local police chief Biplob Bijoy Talukder told AFP.
The family received a phone call from someone using the missing man's number to demand a ransom, but Talukder said police believed this was a hoax.
They have not ruled out the possibility he was abducted by extremists, who have carried out attacks on religious minorities in the region in the past four years.
'OUR JOY IS GONE'
Since 2015 at least three Christians, including two converts from Islam, have been hacked to death in attacks blamed on the militant Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Bikash Hubert Rebeiro, the priest in Bonpara village where Rosario grew up, described him as a "good man" whose disappearance had cast a pall over the pope's visit.
"Our joy is gone," he told AFP by phone. "Everyone in the village is shocked. His elderly mother has [been] crying non stop."
Rebeiro said Rosario's family was friendly with the relatives of Sunil Gomes, the Catholic grocer murdered outside his shop last year.
...
In July last year militants stormed a Dhaka cafe and massacred 22 hostages including 18 foreigners in an attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
The government has denied the international group's involvement. Since the attack, security forces have killed more than 70 alleged militants in a crackdown condemned by rights activists and opposition parties.
This blogger's November 6, 2017, post recommended that Bergoglio "save everybody some trouble by staying in Vatican City and donate all his traveling expenses that he would otherwise incur to Kamal Hossain to continue his saintly work in helping Rohingya children locate their parents." [3] Perhaps he should have done just that. Who knows if any more bad things will happen during his visit in Bangladesh and before, during and after the Mass he is planning to hold there.
On the bright side, bdnews24.com has this headline: "Bangladesh ready to welcome Pope Francis with ceremonial fanfare" that was published on "2017-11-30 02:05:17.0 BdST." [4] Will the pope even mention the kidnapping of his priest and console the priest's heart-broken mother? Should he consider possibly saying a funeral mass should there be a confirmation that the priest was killed? Soon the world would know.
What pains the soul is that Bergoglio's appearance in Bangladesh will be largely symbolic--he has not been scheduled to go to the Rohingya refugee camp and walk among the refugees. This will be his itinerary [5]:
The 80-year old pontiff will be the first pope to set foot here in 30 years with Pope John Paul II being the last one to pay a visit in 1986.
Francis, who is now in Myanmar, will fly to Dhaka on Thursday and land at the Shahjalal International Airport at 3pm to begin his three-day official visit.
President Md Abdul Hamid will welcome the 266th and current pope. A guard of honour along with a 21-gun salute will be given to the pope.
Pope Francis will head to the National Memorial in Savar to pay tributes to the 1971 Liberation War martyrs. He will then visit the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman museum in Dhanmondi.
He will have a private meeting with President Abdul Hamid at the Bangabhaban.
Francis is scheduled to meet Cabinet members and diplomats at the Darbar Hall inside Bangabhaban. He will stay at the Vatican embassy in Baridhara overnight.
On the second day of his official tour, Francis will lead a mass at a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan. After that, he will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Vatican embassy.
Later in the day, he will hold a meeting with bishops at Ramna Cathedral in Kakrail and attend sessions there to preach communal harmony.
On Saturday, he will visit the Mother Teresa Homes in Tejgaon. The visit will be followed by meetings with priests and religious leaders at the Holy Rosary Church. Pope Francis will visit the graveyard there afterwards.
In the afternoon, he will attend a session to exchange views with the youths at the Notre Dame College.
He will leave Dhaka at 5pm Saturday after being seen off by Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali at the airport.
What a pitiful itinerary for someone whose purpose for his present existence is to act like Christ, to be among those who are suffering, if not to heal them but at least to embrace and love them.
[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/three-alleged-islamists-killed-in-bangladesh-before-popes-visit/articleshow/61833312.cms, quoted without hyperlinks.
[2] http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/bangladesh-priest-disappearance-casts-pall-over-pope-visit-9451900
[3] http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2017/11/rohingya-refugees-stateless-but-not.html
[4] https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/11/30/bangladesh-ready-to-welcome-pope-francis-with-ceremonial-fanfare
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