Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui

Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui was a young layman from Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a law graduate, a customs official and a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio. He was killed at the age of twenty-six because he refused to let spoiled food across the border. The Church commemorates him on July 8, the day that the apostolic letter of beatification named as the day of his birth into heaven.

He was born on June 13, 1981, in Goma, a city on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, on the border with Rwanda. He was the first child of a well-off family. At the age of eleven, in the parish of the Holy Spirit in Goma, he received baptism, First Communion and confirmation together. There he served as an altar server and a lector, and he also sang in the choir.

In 2000 he began studying law at the university in Goma and was elected leader of the Catholic students. During his studies he came to know the Community of Sant’Egidio and, with other young people, began to build it up in his own city. They joined prayer and listening to the word of God with service to the poor, especially street children, whom they cared for in the School of Peace. Floribert used to say that these children had not chosen such a life but had been forced into it by circumstances.

After his studies he completed professional training in Kinshasa and was hired by an office that checked the quality of goods at customs. In April 2007, at his own request, he returned to Goma, where he was responsible for inspecting imported food. In June and July unscrupulous people pressed him to let spoiled food through. At first they offered him ever larger sums, then they began to threaten him. Floribert refused every time, and in several cases he ordered spoiled goods, especially rice, that endangered people’s health to be destroyed. According to the decree on his martyrdom, he said: “As a Christian, I cannot allow people’s lives to be sacrificed. It is better to die than to accept that money.”

On July 7, 2007, he was kidnapped in Goma by unknown persons. On the morning of July 9 his body was found, bearing marks of torture and beatings. The autopsy established that he had died during the night of July 8 to 9. Speaking of him to young people in Kinshasa on February 2, 2023, Pope Francis recalled that Floribert could have turned a blind eye and no one would have found out, but as a Christian he prayed, thought of others and chose to be honest.

On November 25, 2024, Pope Francis approved the decree on his martyrdom in hatred of the faith. The beatification took place on June 15, 2025, in Rome, in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, because conditions of security were lacking in Goma. Cardinal Marcello Semeraro presided over it on behalf of Pope Leo XIV. The next day Leo XIV, receiving pilgrims from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, called the new Blessed a man of peace.