Vatican beatifies Congolese customs worker killed in 2007 for refusing bribe

The Vatican on Sunday beatified a Congolese customs worker who was killed for resisting a bribe, giving young people in a place with endemic corruption a new model of holiness: someone who refused to allow spoiled rice to be distributed to poor people. Floribèrt Bwana Chui Bin Kositi was kidnapped and killed in 2007 after he refused to allow rancid rice from Rwanda to be transported across the border to the eastern Congo city of Goma.

The head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, presided over the beatification ceremony of Floribèrt Bwana Chui Bin Kositi on Sunday at one of the pontifical basilicas in Rome, St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The event attracted a cheering crowd of Congolese pilgrims and much of Rome’s Congolese Catholic community, who will be treated to a special audience Monday with Pope Leo XIV.

Faithful wore T-shirts and vests with Kositi’s portrait and erupted in chants and applause as soon as the beatification ceremony was concluded, waving Congolese flags. As an official with the Congolese government’s custom’s quality control office, the 26-year-old knew the risks of resisting bribes offered to public officials. But he also knew the risks of allowing spoiled food to be distributed to the most desperate.

“On that day, those mafiosi found themselves in front of a young man who, in the name of the Gospel, said ‘No.’ He opposed,” his friend Aline Manani said.

“And Floribèrt, I think that for me personally, I would say for all young people, is a role model,” she added. Pope Francis recognized Kositi as a martyr of the faith late last year, setting him on the path to beatification and to possibly become Congo’s first saint. The move fit into the pope’s broader understanding of martyr as a social justice concept, allowing those deemed to have been killed for doing God’s work and following the Gospel to be considered for sainthood.

“Our country almost holds the gold medal for corruption among the countries of the world,” Goma Bishop Willy Ngumbi told reporters last week.

“Here, corruption is truly endemic. So, if we could at least learn from this boy’s life that we must all fight corruption, I think that would be very important.” Transparency International last year gave Congo one of the poorest marks on its corruption perception index, ranking it 163 out of 180 countries surveyed and 20 on the organization’s 0-100 scale, with 0 highly corrupt and 100 very clean. The beatification has brought joy to Goma at a time of anguish.

Violent fighting between government forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels has led to the death of thousands of people and the rebels’ capture of the city has exacerbated what already was one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises. It has renewed the hopes of many in the country of more than 100 million people whose development has been stifled by chronic corruption, which Francis railed about during his 2023 visit to the country.