Isidore Bakanja

Isidor Bakanja (* around 1887 in Bokendela, Congo Free State, † August 15 1909 in Busira, Belgian Congo ) was an African Catholic Mason who was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.

Life

Isidor Bakanja (Greek: Gift of the Goddess Isis force of nature ), a son of pagan parents from the tribe of Boangi, worked after 1900, first as a mason at a Belgian state-owned company in Coquilhatville (now Mbondakal or Mbandaka ) and on farms.

1902 founded the Belgian Trappists from Abdij van Onze Lieve Vrouw van het Heilig Hart - Westmalle, who had come to the Congo in 1894, just around the corner from Bakanjas workplace, in Boloka wa Nsimba a mission station. There seemed Fathers Gregory van Duen and Robert Brepoels, and on May 6, 1906 Bakanja was baptized. On 25 November 1906 he received the confirmation, and on August 8, 1907 his first Holy Communion.

Following termination of the employment contract him his cousin, Camillo Boya mediated a job in 1888 founded company Société Anonyme Belgique pour le Commerce du Haut Congo (SAB ), which in this region held the monopoly of trade for ivory and rubber since 1893. Bakanja came to a rubber plantation, were exploited heavily in the local workers.

At that time, Christians were spurned in Africa and tracked. The Catholic Bakanja got the mainly felt by his atheistic boss Van Cauter, who refused his request for dismissal. On April 22, 1909, came to a violent confrontation with his boss when Bakanja refused to throw his Carmelite scapular. Then let him Van Cauter with a whip, were at the iron spikes, beat to the death, many times even stepped on him and tore his Bakunja scapular he wore an expression of his faith. Thereupon the seriously injured who could not move, imprisoned in a hut, was smoked in the rubber. After three days he was freed by a worker and was able to flee into the swamps. The German plantation overseer and SAB employees Dörpinghaus discovered and helped him. Bakanja was covered with innumerable wounds. On June 4, 1909, his cousin Boya used it on, but Bakanjas health was too poor. On 24 or July 25, 1909 he was visited by the Fathers Gregory Kaptein and Georg Dubrulles, from which he received the last sacraments. Bakanja pardoned on his deathbed his tormentor and died on August 15, 1909.

Isidore Bakanja deemed to be a strong witness to the grace of reconciliation, which can be experienced between people of different races.

Honors

On April 24, 1994 he said, John Paul II blessed. In own calendar of the Carmelites is his feast day August 12, in general ecclesiastical calendar August 15, his date of death.

In Lubumbashi 1994, two newly created centers were by Father Eric Meert of the mission of the Salesians of Don Bosco ( SDB) designated for street children by Bakanja: the meeting point Maison Bakanja Ville and the Youth House Maison Bakanja Centre, which use mainly for the vocational training of young people. The Church of Mbandaka regularly invites the great pilgrimage to the Blessed Bakanja.