On December 30, the Vatican published the number of Catholic missionaries killed in the world in 2022.

According to the Vatican agency Fides, a total of 18 Catholic missionaries were killed worldwide this year. Of these,12 were priests, 3 nuns, 1 religious, 1 seminarian and 1 layman.

The highest number of murders occurred in Africa, where nine missionaries were killed: seven priests and two religious sisters.

In Latin America, eight missionaries were killed: four priests, one religious, one nun, one seminarian and one layman.

Finally, in Asia, the life of a priest was taken.

Fides reported that the total number of missionaries killed between 2001 and 2021 is 526.

The Vatican agency also specifies that this annual list “does not refer only to missionaries ad gentes in the strict sense, but tries to record all Catholic Christians engaged in some way in pastoral activity who died violently, not expressly ‘out of hatred for the faith.'”

“This is why we prefer not to use the term ‘martyrs’, except in its etymological sense of ‘witnesses’, so as not to enter into the judgment that the Church may give about some of them,” the note explains.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.