Fr. Brian Gore, the priest who was jailed for serving the poor, passed away on Easter Sunday but the work he started in Barangay Oringao, Kabankalan City in Negros Occidental, will live on in the people whose lives he touched.
“He taught us to help others, especially the poor without expecting anything in return”, lay leader Jesus Arzaga, one of the four remaining members of the Negros Nine, said on Sunday, April 27.
Gore was the fifth of the nine to pass away.
“We will continue the work he started here,” said Arzaga, who was among those at the Australian missionary’s wake at the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria Church in Oringao where he had served for many years.
Gore, 81, suffered from pneumonia, and died at the Holy Mother of Mercy Hospital in Kabankalan City on April 20.
He was one of the “Negros Nine” – three missionary priests and six lay leaders , including Arzaga, who were wrongly accused of killing Kabankalan Mayor Pablo Sola on March 20, 1982, during then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s regime.
Communist rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Marcos regime linked the three priests and six community workers to the crime.
The nine were believed to have been targeted for serving as voices of the poor communities against military oppression and championing social justice.
Their ordeal gained international attention as the priests from the Missionary Society of St. Columban, one an Australian and the other Irish, and the rest of the group were imprisoned in 1983. They were released 14 months later.
Gore and his co-accused Fr. Nial O’Brien agreed to leave within one month after the dismissal of all charges. When the Marcos regime collapsed, they returned to Negros Occidental to resume their work for the poor in southern Negros Occidental.
Gore had organized Basic Christian Communities in Oringao and worked to uplift the lives of its residents.
“He taught us to love God and to serve with love”, Arzaga said.
“He taught us to serve the poor teach them their rights”, said Nomy Muhal, the widow of lay leader Conrado Muhal, who was also one the Negros Nine.
“He taught us to have faith in God and serve from the heart,” she added.
“Thank you, Lolo Padre, you will forever be in our hearts,” was the message the people of Oringao had for Fr. Gore who was their priest in the 1970s and 80s, and who started a foundation in their village that introduced livelihood programs.
His funeral mass will be at the Cathedral of St. Francis Xavier at 1 p.m. on Monday, April 28, and burial will follow at the Kabankalan Catholic Cemetery.*