Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fr. Lawrence Rosebaugh, RIP

Per the AP, a Milwaukee priest was shot during a robbery in Guatemala on Monday.  

Fr. Lawrence Rosebaugh, 74, had spent 10 years as a missionary in Guatemala, where he ministered to HIV patients. He was scheduled to return to Milwaukee in December, [his superior] said.

This appears (so far) to be a to be a genuine robbery, not the sort of fake-street-crime that is sometimes cover for a Third World assassination.  But years ago, Rosebaugh might have been a candidate for that, too:  

Rosebaugh made international headlines in 1977 when he was jailed in Brazil along with a Mennonite lay worker. The two had been living among the poor of Recife and helping street children by setting up an informal soup kitchen when they were arrested.

When they were released four days later, they complained of being held incommunicado, stripped naked and beaten. They handed a letter detailing their ordeal to U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter, who was on a goodwill tour of Latin America covered by major U.S. media, and the exposure infuriated Brazil's military dictatorship.

Sounds like a good guy, and a lousy way to go.  The thugs got $125, a cell phone, and some religious ornaments.

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