The Primate of Canada and his Principal Private Secretary were robbed at gunpoint while visiting an Anglican parish in Brazil’s diocese of Amazonia
The Primate of Canada and his Principal Private Secretary were robbed at gunpoint while visiting an Anglican parish in Brazil’s diocese of Amazonia. On 23 Nov 2015 the Most Rev. Fred Hiltz (pictured) and the Ven Paul Fehely were about to start their car after their visit to St John the Baptist Church in Belém, when a gang surrounded their car. Brandishing pistols the gang robbed Archbishop Hiltz and Archdeacon Fehely of their wallets, watches and rings. “At one point I was in the back seat with Paul, and they had my left arm out one window and my right arm out the other window trying to pull my rings off. They got my bishop’s ring, but they didn’t get my wedding ring,” Archbishop Hiltz told the Anglican Journal. The two men had been invited to the church in Belém’s slums by the Archbishop of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil to see the work of the church amongst the poor in the Amazon River-side city. Brazilian church leaders “were excited to show us the church, because that church will represent for that neighborhood a sense of hope,” the archbishop said, noting “It helps us to have a deeper appreciation for the context in which the church tries to minister faithfully there.” The incident left him shaken the archbishop said, but added that living with crime was the lot of many Brazilian church workers. “As I step back from that moment, which was terrifying, I think: ‘Yes, I lost my watch; I lost my wallet; I lost a ring; some folks lost phones. But you know, we all could have been shot,’ ” said Hiltz. “We’re going to get on a plane and fly away, and these people— this is what they live with.”
