Pope pays tribute to sister Luisa Dell’Orto killed in Haiti

• Sister Luisa Dell’Orto died in Port-au-Prince on Saturday.
• She was injured in an armed attack.
• The missionary had been in Haiti since 2002.

Pope Francis paid tribute Sunday to an Italian missionary Luisa Dell’Orto killed after two decades of working with children in Haiti, describing her as a martyr.

Sister Luisa Dell’Orto died in hospital in Port-au-Prince on Saturday after being injured in an armed attack during what was believed to have been a robbery, the archdiocese of Milan said.

“Sister Luisa made her life a gift for others, to the point of martyrdom,” Pope Francis said after his weekly Angelus prayer.

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The missionary, who would have celebrated her 65th birthday on Monday, had been in Haiti since 2002, working in one of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods.

She refused to leave, despite the declining security situation in the poverty-wracked Caribbean nation.

Haitian police have been struggling to tackle a surge in gang violence in recent years in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding countryside.

“She was aware that something might happen,” her sister Maria Adele Dell’Orto told the Vatican’s media arm, Vatican News.

“It’s obvious — even in her last letter she said so — that the situation was very difficult. But she was keen to stay and bear witness.”

Vatican News cited a letter last year to a missionary group in which Dell’Orto acknowledged some people thought she was “a bit crazy” to stay.

“To be able to count on someone is important in order to live! And witnessing that you can count on the solidarity that comes from faith and love of God is the greatest gift we can offer,” she said.

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Dell’Orto was a member of the Little Sisters of the Gospel, a religious community inspired by Saint Charles de Foucauld, and had previously worked in Cameroon and Madagascar.

The pope said she had been “dedicated above all to serving children on the streets”.

“I entrust her soul to God, and I pray for the Haitian people, especially for the youngest, so they might have a more peaceful future, without misery and without violence,” he added.