A priest who was set alight during Mass on the West Indian island of St Lucia last Sunday, in an attack which claimed the life of an Irish nun, is very seriously ill. He is in hospital on the nearby island of Martinique and his condition is said to have deteriorated.
Father Charles Gaillard (70) was saying the six o'clock morning Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in the port town of Castries on New Year's Eve when the congregation was attacked by a number of men.
They set upon the congregation with a machete, killing Sister Teresa Egan (72), from Clonaslee, Co Laois, and injuring Sister Mel Kenny (75), from Clonmacnoise, Co Offaly. They also doused several people with kerosene, including Father Gaillard, and set them alight with a blow torch.
Two men who were arrested after the incident said they were Rastafarians and had been sent by Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian leader, who is considered a god by Rastafarians. However, the attack has been denounced by Rastafarian leaders on St Lucia.
Sister Teresa will be buried after a funeral Mass at the same church on Saturday. In attendance will be six family members from Ireland. These include cousins and her three surviving siblings: Sister Raphael, former principal of the girl's primary school in Maynooth, Co Kildare; Sister De Sales, a former secondary teacher at Mountmellick, Co Laois; and Sister Ita, who taught at the Presentation Convent in Lucan, Co Dublin.
The three women are members of the Presentation Order.
Sister Teresa joined the Order of St Joseph of Cluny, as she wished to be a missionary, and she served in the West Indies for 50 years. She had been in St Lucia for 30 years, where she was a former principal of a primary school.
Another sibling, Sister Mach tilde, also belonged to the Order of St Joseph of Cluny until her death.
The Egans were a farming family of nine, five girls and four boys, seven of whom entered religious life. Two of the boys served as De La Salle Brothers while the two remaining boys never married.
Sister Maeve Guinan, provincial superior of the Order of St Joseph of Cluny, based at Mount Sackville Convent in Chapelizod, Dublin, said they had planned a Mass for Sister Teresa on the family's return from St Lucia. It will take place in Ferbane, Co Offaly, where Sister Teresa served her novitiate.
She said there were 13 sisters in the order's community on St Lucia, with Sister Mel Kenny the only surviving Irish nun there. The order's assistant provincial for the West Indies, Sister Angela Mohan, from Sligo, had also been on the island since the killing of Sister Teresa.
