Blessed Isidore Bakanja

Blessed Isidore Bakanja was a young layman from the Congo, a laborer and servant who was cruelly flogged for his fidelity to the faith and for wearing the Carmelite scapular, and who died a few months later, forgiving his persecutor. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on August 15. The Carmelites and the Church in Africa keep his memorial on August 12, the day indicated in the apostolic letter of beatification.

He was born between 1885 and 1890 in the village of Bokendela, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was then the personal property of Leopold II, King of the Belgians. He belonged to the Boangi people, and his parents were pagans. As a young man he moved to Coquilhatville, today’s Mbandaka, where he worked as a helper on building sites. There he came to know the Catholic faith and enrolled in the catechumenate at the Boloko-Nsimba mission, run by Trappists from the Belgian abbey of Westmalle.

He was baptized on May 6, 1906, at about eighteen years of age, and at that time received the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. From then on he wore it constantly as a sign of his faith and his love for Mary. On November 25 of the same year he was confirmed, and on August 8, 1907, he received his First Holy Communion.

Later he became the servant of an agent of a Belgian company that owned large rubber plantations, and moved with him to the plantation at Ikili. Deprived of a priest and the sacraments, he prayed on his own and taught his companions to pray. He won the respect of his fellow workers, many of whom were not Christians. The white managers of the plantation, however, were hostile to Christianity, and one of them forbade him to wear the scapular.

Isidore refused, because taking off the scapular would have meant for him denying his faith. He was beaten for this, and on February 2, 1909, the manager had him flogged at length and cruelly. He tore the scapular from his neck, and Isidore received more than two hundred blows. The wounds never healed. He was hidden from an inspector, who nevertheless found him and took him away for treatment.

At Wenga, near Busira, two Trappist missionaries visited him. He made his confession, received Viaticum, and assured them that he had forgiven his persecutor: “When I am in heaven, I shall pray for him very much.” He died on Sunday, August 8 or 15, 1909, with the scapular around his neck and the rosary in his hand; the decree on his martyrdom gives both dates. In the following years many people in that region embraced the Catholic faith.

The decree on his martyrdom was promulgated on April 2, 1993. John Paul II beatified him on April 24, 1994, in Saint Peter’s Square, during the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, together with Gianna Beretta Molla and Elisabetta Canori Mora. He called him a true catechist and a builder of peace and reconciliation. In 2025 Leo XIV devoted one of the catecheses of the Jubilee Year to him.