US priest killed in robbery in Guatemala

[Bacchus39]

US priest killed in robbery in Guatemala

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_guatemala_us_priest_killed;_ylt=AhKN6qNPuUpJoYHmnKBmi7W3IxIF

Juan Carlos Llorca, Associated Press Writer
GUATEMALA CITY – A U.S. priest who put an international spotlight on human rights abuses in Brazil in the 1970s has been killed by robbers in northern Guatemala.

The Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was shot several times Monday by masked gunmen who stopped a car carrying him and four other missionaries to a meeting in Playa Grande, Guatemala.

A Congolese priest was also wounded in the attack, said the Rev. Jose Luis Castillo of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Mexico, which oversees the order's missions in Guatemala.

"They stole 1,000 quetzales ($125), a cell phone and religious ornaments. Things that have no use for them at all," said Rev. Felix Garcia, a member of Rosebaugh's missionary group in Guatemala.

Robbers have stopped cars driven by members of the order in the area in the past.

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, Castillo said.

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.

"Lorenzo's violent and unexpected death has given us another saint," the Rev. Vicente Louwagit, the order's provincial superior in Mexico, wrote in a message to missionaries.

His body will be buried Wednesday in Guatemala City.