Irish priest brutally murdered in his South African home

AN elderly Irish missionary parish priest was brutally murdered when he challenged burglars in his South African home.

Fr Manus Campbell, 70, a native of Belfast and a member of the Irish Franciscan Order, had worked in South Africa for 45 years. On Tuesday night, he was tied up, beaten around the head and strangled.

His colleague, Fr Bernard Hall, also a member of Franciscans, said Fr Campbell was watching television when the burglars climbed up the drainpipe and entered the building through a balcony door. “He must have heard them. They attacked him with a blunt instrument. They must have knocked him out and then tied him up.”

The thieves bound the priest’s feet with a belt, used the cord from his habit to tie his hands and put a gag in his mouth.

Fr Hall said Fr Manus, who lived in the parochial house that adjoined Our Lady Star of The Sea Church, in Amanzimtoti, a built up area near Durban, was an exceptionally hard working person. He was most anxious the people were able to attend Mass and receive the sacraments as regularly as possible and would travel long distances to make that possible.

The priest said he administered the last rites to Fr Manus shortly after he was murdered in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Yesterday he had the unpleasant task of identifying his body after a post mortem.

Fr Campbell is the tenth Irish missionary to die a violent death, or the result of trauma following a violent incident, in the last six years.

Fr Joe Cantwell, executive secretary of the Irish Missionary Union, said there were almost 2,700 Irish missionaries working abroad in the middle of wars, tribal disputes and troubled countries like South Africa.

A lot of missionary work was dangerous, he emphasised. “A lot of these places are unstable and, as a result, they are poor. That’s where missionaries tend to be,” he said.

Fr Manus is survived by his sister Agnes Goss, who lives in Belfast and a number of nieces and nephews.