Killed for fighting corruption, a Congolese man made a martyr is inspiring a new generation

GOMA, Congo — When Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi was asked in 2007 to allow spoiled rice from Rwanda to be transported across the border to the eastern Congo city of Goma, he knew the risks of resisting corruption, especially as a government worker. He refused nonetheless.

It didn't take long before he was kidnapped; days later, his body was found by colleagues at the Office Congolais de Contrôle, the agency that monitors the quality of products. Nearly two decades after his death, he is being celebrated in the central African country and beyond following Pope Francis' recent approval of his beatification. It's a step toward possible sainthood, a status no one from Congo has ever achieved.

In the conflict-battered Goma, where years of war have increased desperation and corruption, Kositi's designation as a martyr has eased some of the pain caused by his death.

''Floribert was murdered in very difficult circumstances,'' said Yack's Jean Jacques, his former colleague in Goma. Jacques recalled the wounds in Kositi's body when they found him after a dayslong search.

''He left us a fight that we must all continue as Christians, as people, as young people in the province of North Kivu,'' said Jacques, referring to the war-ravaged province where Kositi lived most of his 25 years before being killed.

Pope Francis recognized Kositi as a martyr late last year, setting him on the path to beatification. The move fits into the pope's broader definition of martyr as a social justice concept, paving the way for others deemed to have been killed for doing God's work, to be considered for sainthood.

The Rev. Francesco Tedeschi, an Italian priest who is spearheading the beatification cause as the postulator, said the Vatican decree of martyrdom indeed recognizes Kositi died out of hatred for the faith, because his decision to not accept the spoiled food was profoundly inspired by the Gospel.

''How much spoiled food, how much expired medicine, how many discarded things are sent to these places because there is this conception that these lives there aren't as worthy?'' Tedeschi said. ''And yet Floribert, in his Christianity, wanted to put the value of the lives of these people, and above all the poorest, at the center.''

Tedeschi, who knew Kositi's through their work together with the Sant'Egidio Community, said he was a model for today's young people in Congo, who are constantly tempted by corruption in a country ranked among the poorest in the world. At least 70% of its people lived on less than $2.15 a day in 2024, according to the World Bank.

Kositi "could have earned a lot of money and made a nice life. Instead, he chose to be a witness to the Gospel,'' Tedeschi said. If in the past the Catholic Church identified martyrs who refused to kneel down to false idols, ''the idol to which he refused to kneel down was the idol of money.''

Tedeschi confirmed that Kositi could be the first Congolese saint, but noted there are several other Congolese who have been beatified before him. And regardless, the Vatican must confirm a miracle attributed to his intercession after he is beatified before he could be canonized, a process that can take decades or more.

''We feel relieved today to see that our son has been recognized worldwide for the benefits he has brought,'' Kositi's mother, Gertrude Kamara Ntawiha, said in December when a memorial Mass was celebrated in his honor at Goma's Sainte-Esprit Catholic parish.

The Mass brought together family, friends and community members. They reminisced about Kositi's life, drawing from it lessons about his fight against corruption and inspiration for his martyrdom.

''We can have saints here, we can have blessed people here in Goma, it's not impossible,'' Abbé Jean Baptiste Bahati, a Catholic priest, said during the commemoration.

Being declared a martyr exempts the sainthood candidate from the requirement that a miracle must be attributed to their intercession before they are beatified, thereby fast-tracking the process to get to the first step of sainthood.

Several others have been declared martyrs under the redefinition of the word, including El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero who was killed in 1980 for his preaching against the repression of the poor at the start of the country's civil war as well as St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who traded his life for that of a married man in 1941. Kolbe was beatified under normal procedures in 1971 before St. John Paul II announced that he would be venerated as a martyr when he canonized him in 1982.

They have a common bond: A life lost fighting for the poor and the less privileged.

It is the ethos that Pope Francis encouraged Congolese people to emulate when he visited the country in 2023.

''He could easily have turned a blind eye; nobody would have found out, and he might even have gotten ahead as a result," the pope said of Kositi. ''But since he was a Christian, he prayed. He thought of others and he chose to be honest, saying no to the filth of corruption.''

That cause lives on at the Floribert Bwana Chui School of Peace in Goma. Named after Kositi, the school aims to advance the social justice and welfare that he fought for, with hundreds of children displaced or orphaned by war under its care.

''Floribert is an example,'' said Aline Minani, part of the Sant'Egidio community of laypeople that runs the school.

''Through this school, we continue to live and pass on Floribert's values to these children."

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Associated Press journalists Nicole Winfield in Rome and Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed.

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