Massacres were 'Heaviest blow for Church in Congo'

REQUIEMS IN ROME AND
LONDON.
NINETEEN Cardinals, the Papal Nuncio to Italy, the Belgian and Irish Ambassadors were among the huge congregation which packed the church of San Andrea, Rome, on Thursday last week for a solemn Requiem Mass for the victims of the Kongolo massacre on New Year's Day.
Places of honour in the church went to representatives of the Holy Ghost Fathers whose Congregation has suffered the loss of 22 members in the Kongolo and subsequent massacres.
Representatives of all the religious Congregations in Rome were present in the church which was draped in mourning. Many archbishops and bishops from missionary countries attended. There too were Fr. H. Nayrand, representing the Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers ; Fr. H. Varre, C.S.Sp., Rector of the French Seminary ; Archbishop Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. of Dakar ; and Bishop de Milleville, C.S.Sp., exiled Bishop of Conakry, French Guinea.
Cardinal Agagianian, Prefect of Propaganda, gave the Absolution at the catafalque. The Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Sigismondi Secretary of Propaganda.
high Mass to commemorate the victims of the Kongolo massacre will be celebrated in Westminster Cathedral on Wednesday, February 14, at 6 p.m. Cardinal Godfrey will preside. The choir will be formed by members of the Holy Ghost Fathers Senior Scholasticate at Upton Hall. The preacher will be Fr. Henry Parkinson, Provincial.
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Meanwhile, Holy Ghost Fathers in England have received from Rome the names of the additional members of their Congregation who have lost their lives, bringing the total to 22. They are : Frs. Schildermans, J. Postelmans, W. Jillijns, and Brother B. Heemskerk.
It is also reported that at the Lubunda mission, 32 kms from Kongolo, Fr. Remy and a Congolese ecclesiastic were wounded; nothing is known of the fate of the missionaries at Makutando.
ESCAPE
THE hero of last week was 35year-old Major Dick Lawson, an English officer serving with the U.N. Nigerian Brigade in the Congo, who brought out to safety the only European priest to escape the Kongolo massacre, Fr. Jules D'Armont, and then saved four Congolese priests who thought they were in danger.
Major Lawson paid for this effort with a beating up at the hands of mutineering Central Continued on page 8