Blessed Floribert Kositi

In July 2007, Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi once again faced a momentous moral decision. Kositi was a customs worker on the DRC-Rwanda border, responsible for approving the transport of goods into and out of the DRC – or rejecting them because of their poor quality. He was regularly offered bribes to allow spoild food and other products of poor quality across the border. He always refused. On this particular day, he was confronted by men attempting to transport spoiled rice from Rwanda into the eastern Congolese city of Goma. Kositi knew that, if he approved the transport of the spoiled rice into Goma, it would be sold to people desperate for food who would then eat it and get sick. So Kositi refused the rice. Those attempting to transport the rice into Goma tried to bribe Kositi. Most other government inspectors would have been only too happy to accept the bribe. The system was corrupt top to bottom, and gangsters relied on bribing customs officials to get their rancid goods across the border. But Kositi refused and turned the rice away.

Kositi knew this was dangerous. The Democratic Republic of Congo at the time was rife with corruption. Sadly, it remains so today. Kositi refusing to allow the rice into his country was like, in America, refusing to allow drug cartels to transport their wares across our border. He knew he was only one man standing up to a dark and deadly system. But he still refused the rice because he believed it was the right thing to do. Kositi was a devout Catholic. He was a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic association of the faithful who dedicate their lives to service in the name of the Church. Sant’Egidio is recognized by Rome as an international association of the faithful. Kositi was trying to live his life according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That meant he could not accept bribes and allow food that would make people sick into Goma.

And he paid the price. Shortly after the incident, on July 7, 2007, Kositi was kidnapped. Two days later, his body was found by a motorcyclist, showing signs of Kositi having been beaten and tortured. An autopsy determined that he died on July 8. He was 26 years old.

During his 2013 visit to the DRC, Pope Francis addressed thousands of young people in a stadium in the capital city of Kinshasa. Pope Francis spoke of Floribert Kositi, saying that Floribert “could have turned a blind eye, no one would have found out, and he might even have gotten ahead as a result. But, since he was a Christian, he prayed. He thought of others, and he chose to be honest, saying no to the filth of corruption. That is what it means to keep your hands clean and your heart clean too.”

Yesterday, on Trinity Sunday, Floribert Kositi was beatified as a martyr of the Church in a ceremony at the pontifical basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls in Rome. His feast day is July 8. Because he was designated by Pope Francis as a martyr, killed “in hatred of the faith,” Blessed Floribert’s cause did not require a miracle for his beatification. A miracle is required, however, for his being canonized a saint.

But Blessed Floribert’s Christian witness was not limited to his standing up against corruption and his martyrdom. As a devout Catholic and member of Sant’Egidio, Blessed Floribert served the poor in his city, especially the maibobo, the street children of Goma, so despised by the residents of the city. Blessed Floribert would care for them and pay for their education with his own money.

Blessed Floribert, the “martyr of honesty,” is a source of pride for the people of the DRC as the first from his country, and the first member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, to be elevated to the altar. Ravaged by war, government corruption, and poverty, the people of the Congo look to Blessed Floribert as an example of Christian living, of dedication to Christ, of giving it all for the gospel, of doing what is right even at a great price. So should we all.

Blessed Floribert Kositi, pray for us!

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.