Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Manizales (Agenzia Fides) – The headmaster of San Rafael Technical Institute in Manizales (about 200 km from Bogotà) was attacked by robbers in the evening of 4 May. Fr Carlos González, aged 47, was stabbed and seriously wounded by two men who wanted to steal his automobile. Local police chief in Caldas, colonel Jhon Jaime Ospina, told a local radio station that the priest was attacked by two men whom he had noticed earlier. When he refused to give them the car, the men reacted by stabbing him and inflicting at least 30 wounds. The men then took the car and the wounded priest abandoning him in the open countryside near Manizales, along the road leading to Bogotà.
Fr Gustavo Cardona, vice headmaster of San Rafael School, told the local press that at the end of an evening meeting Fr. Carlos González left the school to go home and he was followed by two men. The police found the priest's car with the men inside and after a car chase through the centre of Manizales caught and arrested the men near the municipality of Villamaria, Cervantes district. The doctors at San Marcel Clinic where Fr Gonzalez was taken, said that with all those stab wounds it is a miracle that the priest is still alive.
The Capuchin Tertiaries of the Sorrowful Mother (Amigoniani) are a community of Franciscan origin founded by Friar Luis Amigò, Capuchin Bishop, on 12 April 1889 in Valencia, Spagna. They are present on 4 continents. In America, they are present in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, United States, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.
The San Rafael Technical School, where Fr Carlos González has been headmaster since 2008, offers education at various grades: pre-school, primary school, secondary school and technical secondary school as well as diplomas in management of formation, human management, administrative and financial management. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 06/05/2010)
