"Father Fausto - the blog of the PIME missionaries in the Philippines reads - was assassinated outside his parish in Arakan, North Cotabato, Mindanao.
Around 8 o'clock in the morning he was getting into his car to go to Kidapawan, 60 km from the mission, for a diocesan meeting, when a killer with a motorcycle helmet approached him and fired several shots.
For over 32 years Fausto had worked closely with the natives in the area, the Manobos, training and organizing small mountain communities.
In this manner he tried to meet their daily needs and aspirations, work and school, but to "answer" also meant to addressing more powerful forces that are more interested in property and personal interests than in local and universal brotherhood.
Several years ago he had already been threatened by an armed group belonging to the Bagan clan. On that occasion he was protected by the Manobos Indians themselves."
A profile of the Father
Father Fausto was born on January 7, 1952 in Santa Maria di Rovagnate and raised in Santa Maria Hoe', in the Northern Italian town of Lecco.
He was ordained in 1977 and left for the Philippines the following year. Before the mission in Arakan he had worked in a mission in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat, inhabited by Christians, Muslims and B'lang indians.
The death of Fr. Tentorio is a new chapter in that face of martyrdom which for many years now characterizes the presence of the PIME in Mindanao. Before him two other missionaries of the PIME gave their lives here for the Gospel: Father Tullio Favali, killed in 1985, and father Carzedda Saviour, who was killed in 1992. Another two missionaries of the PIME, in more recent years, suffered a kidnapping: Father Luciano Benedetti in 1998 and Father Giancarlo Bossi in 2007.
Who is killing the missionaries?
But who is killing the missionaries in Mindanao?
We tried to explain it on World Mission a few years ago in the special article in World Mission, which we had dedicated to this region in 2007, shortly after the kidnapping of Father Bossi.
To tell of a land where many problems were in fact hidden beneath Islamic fundamentalism.