The murder of a prominent pastor in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, this week has focused attention on that country’s alarming murder rate and the regular threats that Christian workers there receive. Pastor Carlos Roberto Marroquín, 41, was shot to death by two assailants as he walked his two Schnauzer dogs in the Colonia Aurora neighborhood near his house on Monday.

Initially police said they believed theft of the dogs was the reason for the murder, but that they were investigating other possible motives. Officers said two gunmen in a white car pulled up beside the pastor and tried to snatch the dogs, shooting Marroquín when he resisted, but the city’s chief prosecutor, Marlene Bane, yesterday affirmed that witnesses said the gunmen had demanded Marroquín’s cell phone, not the dogs, according to El Heraldo newspaper…

Whether the high-profile pastor was targeted as a Christian leader for the murder-theft is a matter of conjecture; such killings are common in Honduras for people of all religious beliefs, and although he had received death threats, those too are not unusual for Christian leaders in the country.

Marroquín was the founding pastor of the Pentecostal Church of God in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city. He was also the founder and president of the Christian Legal Fellowship and co-founder of the Latin American Network of Christian Lawyers. President-elect of the Association of Evangelical Pastors in San Pedro Sula, he was a popular presenter on television and radio programs.

Marroquín was the second pastor to be murdered in Honduras this year, after the Jan. 30 killing of Raymundo Fuentes, 43, pastor of the New Jerusalem Temple.

Read More: http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/33496/33499/

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