The Vatican announced on Monday that Frans van der Lugt, a Jesuit priest who has steadfastly refused to leave the Syrian city of Homs where he has been living and serving the small Catholic community for decades, had been executed by masked gunmen. “Father Frans was killed in the garden of our monastery,” Rev. Ziad Hillal, another Jesuit who lived there with the Dutch priest, toldVatican Radio. “They shot him in the head. It was a premeditated act.” Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans wrote on his Facebook page that van der Lugt “only brought good to Homs, was a Syrian among Syrians, (who) refused to abandon them even when it meant risking his own life.” Observers have noted a sharp increase in violence against Christians in Syria as the civil war there grinds into its fourth year. Read More
