Plan to Advance Sainthood Course of Catechist in Mozambique Who Chose Death to Save Villagers Surfaces

Highlighting the popular devotion that members of local communities already have for Catechist Cipriano and Sr. Maria, he says, “They are deeply loved, remembered, and even have a cult, with pilgrimages to both tombs by people who go [there] frequently to pray, and so it is necessary that we begin these processes, and above all because they are two martyrs, two great martyrs.”

According to the report by ACN, the Church only needs to wait the five years necessary to open the process for Sr. Maria’s beatification by martyrdom.

However, Bishop Aréjula gives the assurance that starting next year, preparatory work will begin so that everything will be ready for the long-awaited process to begin in 2027.

He says that he will seek to "simultaneously advance the process for the beatification of catechist Cipriano, also martyred in the Diocese.”

Born into a Muslim family, Cipriano became a Christian and a Catechist. He emerged as a Catechist at a time when a civil war had plunged Mozambique into a deep humanitarian crisis.

Over a million had been estimated to have died in the country’s 11-year war of independence that ended in 1975, and the subsequent civil war that erupted shortly after and raged for 17 years. An additional three million ended up as refugees.

The persecution and violence which affected Christians continued, pitting Frelimo against Renamo, even as Portuguese colonial rule slowly came to an end.

CRTN reports that at the height of the persecution, many missionaries were expelled or left the country because of the fighting.

Many scattered small Christian communities were entrusted to the care of Catechists who visited missions regularly, bringing Holy Communion to local community members.

A Catechist was also responsible for catechizing, training catechists, preparing Sunday services, because the Liturgy of the Word was celebrated in communities that had no Holy Mass on Sundays.

“It was a life of many sacrifices, travel difficulties, hunger, and material problem. They received no pay for their work,” says the CRTN documentary.

A father of seven, Catechist Cipriano was a model for his colleagues, risking his life at the height of the war to engage in pastoral work.

Catechist Cipriano tried to be close to the people and their problems, always talking about the Gospel in the local language they could understand, and encouraging everyone to live a life of faith with faithfulness, in spite of the war, hunger and the difficulties that Christians had to confront at the time.

The Nakala Diocese, in which he lived and worked, serves Mozambique's northern region where Christians are the minority amongst an overwhelmingly Muslim majority. The area in which Cipriano grew up lacked tolerance.

Catechist Cipriano was murdered on 28 August 1984, when guerrilla fighters burst into his village searching for government supporters. Aware of the dangers, Cipriano betrayed no one.

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“For the local community Cipriano is already a saint, one who offered his life to save his fellow men,” says the CRTN documentary.

These are the exact sentiments about Sr. Maria de Coppi. “For the people, she is already a saint,” Bishop Aréjula is quoted as saying in the interview with ACN.

The CMS member was 83 years old when terrorists shot her dead on the night of 6 September 2022, at the Chipene mission in the Diocese of Nacala.

“Sister is an example of a mother, of a good woman, of a holy woman who was always very close to the people and the people feel her loss in their hearts; they feel that Sister Maria de Coppi truly is a saint,” the Catholic Bishop of Nacala has been quoted as saying.