To Serve the People, In Christ's Name

His name was Father Frans van der Lugt, S.J., a Dutch priest. Father Frans, they called him. A Jesuit, like the pope. And a missionary, which is really the point of the story.

Father Van der Lugt was 75 years old, and he had been in Syria for long time. Since 1966, to be exact, or nearly 50 years. For some, a lifetime, and for all too many of his tragic young charges, much more than a lifetime. But that might be getting a little ahead of the story.

You don’t hear much about priests like him these days. What a shame. There’s scandal, to be sure, and it’s trumpeted all over the front page. That’s as it should be, I suppose, because a priest who fails to play by the rules is still an exception. More than ever, in fact. Still, you wish that more attention might be paid to priests like Father Van der Lugt, because his story makes him a hero for our times and for all time. Let me tell you some more.

Father Frans came to Syria to help the poor, and he found plenty of poverty among the people with whom he worked. In recent years the poverty was compounded by unimaginable violence, as a seemingly endless civil war devastated the country. A coalition of rebel forces is waging a no-holds-barred campaign against the government, and that government has responded in kind. The fighting has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives, and, as we said, no end is in sight.

Little of the ideology of war mattered to Father Van der Lugt. He was there, as he declared, to help both Christians and Muslims, anyone in need. He was there to help Syrians. He did most of his work in Homs, in the Old City, and there was more than enough to be done. Helping to supervise the evacuation of some 1,500 refugees from Homs in February, he pleaded for those who were starving to death, especially the children. He asked for aid to the besieged city in a memorable YouTube clip.

Concerned about the danger he faced every day, not to mention his age, Father Frans’ Jesuit superiors offered him a safe haven. He would have none of it. As he told Catholic News Service by telephone Feb. 6: “There has been no food. People are hungry and waiting for help.”

For some, that help never came--and, sadly, their number would include Father Frans. He left us in April.

Accounts of his death varied slightly. One version had him slain by a masked man; another said a man had taken the priest outside, to the street, and killed him with two bullets to the head. The method mattered little; the fact was that Father Frans, the missionary priest, was dead.

The Jesuits mourned the brutal assassination of the man who “dedicated his life to the poorest and neediest, and did not want to abandon them even at times of great danger.” Their statement continued: “He always spoke of peace and reconciliation and he opened his doors to all those asking help without distinction of race or religion. ‘I don’t see Muslims or Christians,’ he used to say, ‘but only human beings.’”

In the end, a man giving his all to serve the people, in Christ’s name. And in one short sentence, that’s the essence of the priesthood. That’s what it means to be a priest.

(This essay is a recent “Light One Candle” column, written by Jerry Costello, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)

Background information:

The Christophers

The Telegraph: Father Frans van der Lugt - obituary (20 APR 14)