Missionary Heroes or Martyrs?

It is a fact that the missionaries were killed in cold blood by Moro assailants. They are Fr. Rufus Haley and Fr. Innocentes.

Fr. Haley was an Irish Columban missionary and Fr. Innocentes a Filipino OMI missionary.

I was one of the concelebrants in their funeral Masses, in Cotabato and Cagayan de Oro. Why were they killed?

Stories after their killing were surprisingly the same but many of us believed them to be correct and true. Main reason? They resisted knowing they would be killed immediately. Why? So their respective missionary society, families and friends, would not suffer their loss and looking for money to ransom them. We knew this was the way we agreed with our brave and courageous missionaries when they joined us in mission. True there were friends, like a fellow bishop in the North who was rightly concerned, but could not understand, that we didn’t go there to become popular heroes and martyrs. I remember what he said in sympathy, “Nanding, why are you there. You are being ambushed and killed, why are you still there?” Of course, our Herald readers in Mindanao of Shalom, would know our answer.