A Catholic priest in the province of Nueva Ecija was killed yesterday while he was preparing for mass.
Unidentified assailants gunned down Father Richmond Nilo of Cabanatuan City at around 5pm when he was about to celebrate mass in a chapel in Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija, according to the Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
BREAKING: Another priest, Fr, Richmond Nilo of the Cabanatuan diocese, was shot dead by unidentified persons while celebrating Mass around 5pm Sunday inside a chapel in Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija. #cbcpnews
— CBCPNews (@cbcpnews) June 10, 2018
Initial reports state the suspects fled using a car, CBCP News reported.
Father Nilo is reportedly the third priest to be killed since December.
It follows the attack on 37-year-old Father Mark Ventura in Cagayan on April and the ambush of 72-year-old Father Marcelito Paez, also in Nueva Ecija, in December.
Father Nilo’s death also comes less than a week after an attack in Calamba, Laguna that injured Father Rey Urmeneta of the St. Michael the Archangel Parish.
In a statement released by the Diocese of Cabanatuan, it condemned the killing of Father Nilo, calling the act “un-Filipino.”
“No priest, and no human being for that matter, deserves to be killed with utter brutality, disrespect and impurity…To kill a priest then, for whatever motive or cause, is not only unchristian and inhuman; it is also un-Filipino,” the statement reads.
Police are still looking into possible motives behind the attack.
