The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the Vatican feels "immense pain, consternation, bewilderment and stupor" over the death of Roman Catholic bishop Luigi Padovese, 63, the apostolic vicar in Anatolia, who was stabbed in southern Turkey on Thursday, June 3, a day before he was scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the Pope.

“The assassination showed the difficult conditions that the Catholic community in the region lives in,” he told AP.