On 22 January 2022, the diocesan process for the beatification of Father Nicolas Kluiters, a Dutch Jesuit who worked in Lebanon, will begin in Beirut. He entered the novitiate in 1965, and after his studies in philosophy and theology, he studied social work. He was also a painter. He arrived in Lebanon in 1966 and was kidnapped, tortured and killed in March 1985.

He lived in the turbulent period after the Second Vatican Council, when many religious left their congregations. His former Father Master, Father Piet van Breemen, said how Nicholas lived through this period: "He did not uncritically approve of everything that happened. Because he was to some extent 'unconventional', he could easily keep his distance from trends that wanted to impose themselves.

Facing spiritual and material poverty 

Nicholas' apostolate was in the northern part of the Bekaa plain. A poor, neglected region. He had to face spiritual as well as material poverty. He often shared the life of the inhabitants, eating and sleeping in their homes. In the village of which he had become parish priest, appointed by the Maronite bishop, he lived for several years without a house of his own, lodging with the people. He travelled a lot in this region: catechesis, Bible evenings, baptisms, training of children for the first communion, visits of the few priests who were often very poor and not very well trained.

He worked especially in the village of Barqa which was part of a triangle between Chlifa, Aynata and Nabha. In the interior, all the villages were Maronite. The whole area around was Shia Muslim. This minority situation in the midst of the tensions of the war was an invitation for the inhabitants to emigrate. The social worker in Nicolas saw a clear choice: either to give the inhabitants the means to survive there or to encourage them to leave. He chose the first option and spent all his energy on developing the village.

Building a road and waterpipes with the inhabitants

He succeeded in building, with the active collaboration of the inhabitants, a road to the agricultural land above the village; he set up, with them, water pipes, allowing the cultivation of fruit trees. In his mind, this was a way to combat the hashish cultivation that was common in the whole region. He built a new church in the hills so that the inhabitants could pray there during the summer season, when the goat herds were there. He succeeded in having an additional school built in the middle of the village, thus uniting two parts of the village that had long been in conflict. He obtained the arrival of nuns from the Congregation of the Holy Hearts to look after the school. On the same site, he succeeded in obtaining the establishment of a dispensary, open to the inhabitants of the whole region, supported by the Order of Malta. He was also able to bring in a sewing workshop in collaboration with a factory in Beirut which supplied the material, thus creating work for the women of the village. The village priest did not have his own house. For a long time, Nicolas slept in the homes of the inhabitants. He was finally able to build a house for the priest, thus ensuring a place of prayer and rest for the priest, as well as a parish hall and another room for a visiting priest who could give the priest a hand.

Threatened

He had thus become an authority in both spiritual and civil matters. He was very popular, and to this day his portrait can be found in every house in the village. The propaganda of the political parties, pro-Syrian, left-wing and Shi'ite parties had no hold on Barqa. This is where Nicolas became "troublesome". He knew that his life was threatened. Believing that his mission was perhaps accomplished, he seriously thought of expressing his availability for a new mission in Sudan. At the end of a five-week session on Ignatian spirituality in Rome in 1984, he spoke to Father General, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, with whom he had had excellent relations since his theological studies in Beirut. The decision was made to return to Barqa to consolidate his work, despite the real dangers in the region. He therefore resumed his work. In March 1985, after a visit to the region of Hermel, he was in a hurry to return to Barqa and took the road that passes through Nabha and Qaddâm, a road that he advised against all those who wanted to come to him. It was on this road that he was ambushed. He was tortured and murdered.

Thom Sicking SJ (Beirut)
Vice-postulator