“All the slanderous news spread recently seeks to discredit the credible work carried out by the Sisters of Mater Dei convent,” the archdiocese said in a statement reported today by Vatican Radio.
Articles published in Mozambique and Portugal have aimed to cast doubt on the credibility of the missionaries and a lay Brazilian who spoke out against the grisly trade of organs. The nuns had already received death threats in January because of the reports they gave to local authorities.
“We reject all the mechanisms used to silence or divert the work of the Catholic Church in Nampula to report the traffic of minors, kidnappings, killings and mutilations of corpses,” says the archdiocese statement, signed by Archbishop Tomé Makhweliha and others.
It adds: “We request that the investigations continue and that they arrive at an exhaustive, transparent, consistent and unconditional solution. May the truth come soon and the criminals be unmasked.”
