On August 31, and after several days of searching, the Italian missionary priest Giuseppe (José) Messeti, 72 years old, who was working in the Andean region of Peru, was found dead.
According to the newspaper Mailthe lifeless body of the priest who was a member of the Comboni Missionaries was found in the high area of the Ricrán district, in the province of Jauja, in the Peruvian Andes.
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The priest, who served as vicar of the Santo Domingo de Guzmán de Palca parish and in the San Pedro de Huánuco parishwas found sitting on a rock with his backpack. Apparently he fell into an abyss, after which he managed to climb up to a certain section but no one could help him.
The priest’s remains were taken to the Félix Mayorca hospital for the legal autopsy that would reveal the causes of death.
Mons. Timoteo Solórzano Rojas, Bishop of Tarma, had reported on August 30 that the deceased priest “had left very early for the district of Ricrán / Tambillos, which belongs to the province of Jauja. He supposedly would return to the community at 8pm at the latest.”
“When they saw that he did not arrive at that time, they notified the local police station. Today, August 30, early in the morning, the search began for Ricrán and they only found the car, but not him,” she added.
In a publication dated August 31, the prelate and “all the clergy” extended “their condolences to the Congregation of the Comboni Fathers in Peru, to the family members and to the Community of Palca, for the early departure of Father Giuseppe Messetti to the glory of God.”
“We make posthumous recognition and gratitude for the faithful work that Father Giuseppe carried out in the different communities in which he had to carry out his missionary work for several years.”
“Let us raise our prayers to the Lord of Muruhuay for his eternal rest and our consolations to the congregation and family,” he concludes. the diocese of Tarma.
The Lord of Muruhuay is an image of Christ painted on a rock, in the town center of Muruhuay, in the district of Acobamba, in Tarma, department of Junín, in the central Andes of Peru. Muruhuay, in Quechua, means house of two or several colors.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.