Disappearance of priest casts pall over Pope visit

A Catholic priest has disappeared in Bangladesh, police said yesterday, as the Muslim-majority country stepped up security ahead of a landmark visit by Pope Francis that follows a rise in Islamist attacks on religious minorities, reports AFP in Dhaka.

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 Islamist 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.

 

 

Disappearance of priest casts pall over Pope visit

A Catholic priest has disappeared in Bangladesh, police said yesterday, as the Muslim-majority country stepped up security ahead of a landmark visit by Pope Francis that follows a rise in Islamist attacks on religious minorities, reports AFP in Dhaka. 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 Islamist 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 dont 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.