Pope prays for Spanish missionary killed in Haiti

Sister Isabel Sola Matas

At the conclusion of yesterday's Canonisation Mass for Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope Francis remembered a Spanish missionary sister who was murdered on Friday in Haiti. Sister Isabel Sola Matas, 51, devoted her life to helping the poor of Haiti, and creating opportunities to give them a better future.

She was driving very slowly down a muddy potholed road, near a busy intersection crowded with pedestrians, when gunmen struck.They shot her twice at point blank range in the chest. A Haitian woman who was her passenger was also shot twice in the chest and taken to hospital.

The gunmen were after her purse, but in murdering Isabel they robbed Haiti of a devoted and caring friend. Sr Isabel was a member of the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary. She worked as a nurse, helped build houses, created a workship for prosthetic limbs for amputees of Haiti's 2010 earthquake. She was also instrumental in helping to build a Vocational School to teach trades, so the poor so could have the dignity of jobs and the realized hope of a real future.

At the Sacred Heart Church, in the parish where Sr Isabel served, Fr Hans Alexandre said: "Isabel`s loss is immense. In doing this, they didn`t just kill a person. they killed the hopes of so many."

Source: CRJM/Vatican Radio