On May 18, 2009,
a group of assailants killed the Oblate priest, Lorenzo ROSEBAUGH, originally
from the United States. The attack also wounded Fr. Jean-Claude NGOMA NDEWES,
originally from Congo. Three years after the death of Fr. Lorenzo, absolutely
nothing is known about the motive and the identity of the killers. On October
28, 2009, the police captured Pedro Choc, Miguel Xo Botzoc and Alfredo Xo.
However, after almost six months of trial, the court of Coban found them
innocent and they were set free for lack of hard evidence, despite the fact
that the bullet found on the dead body of Fr. Lorenzo, according to ballistics
experts, matched one of the guns, a 22 caliber automatic Magnum, owned by Don
Pedro Choc.
Lorenzo
dedicated his life for the poorest of the poor in Latin America, in Brazil, El
Salvador and especially Guatemala. His struggle for peace and disarmament, his
resistance to the U.S. presence in Vietnam, his struggle against nuclear
weapons, and his opposition to the training in the U.S. of young Latin
Americans for war…repeatedly sent him to jail. There are few who like him have
lived and shared the “fate” (or better, the misfortune) of the most
disadvantaged. With unkempt hair and a long beard, he dressed poorly and was
confused with the street people. Sometimes, he slept under bridges with the
homeless and, with them, he looked for discarded vegetables in the markets to
feed them to the poor. In Brazil, he was falsely accused of stealing a cart he
was using to bring food to the homeless. Imprisoned in a miserable jail, he was
abused and even beaten by other inmates.
When the Oblates
learned of his whereabouts, they told the bishop of Recife, Dom Helder Camara,
who went to court on his behalf until they released him. He also worked among
Salvadoran peasants who were terrorized by the civil war in El Salvador in the
80’s.
He continued his
work for the poor in Guatemala, a ministry he interrupted to return to the
United States to be near his dying mother. Upon her death, he stayed in the
U.S. a couple more years to write his autobiography entitled: To Wisdom Through Failure: A journey of
Compassion, Resistance and Hope. In it, he wrote: “After being back in the United States over two years, I feel sort
of like a fish out of water, having been exposed to the poor and their living
conditions. I anxiously await the day I can return to Guatemala.”
And to Guatemala
he did return, to serve the people he loved. There he was shot on May 18, 2009,
at the age of 74. (Ser misionero hoy, No 7)
