Scottish Catholic Observer

Archbishop Madtha (above) was travelling back from the northwestern town of Odienne to an Ordination ceremony in the west of the country on Saturday evening when his car collided with another vehicle. The archbishop’s driver also died in the accident, while his secretary and a religious sister were injured.

“Unfortunately the apostolic nuncio died on the spot,” said Mathieu Tehan, spokesman for the Man Diocese where the Ordaination was to take place.

President Alassane Ouattara read out a statement on national television expressing his ‘deep regret’ at the death and sent condolences to the church and late nuncio’s family.

Archbishop Madtha was born in 1955 in the Southwest Indian state of Kamataka and appointed to the Ivory Coast in 2008.

The nuncio had a behind-the-scenes mediating role during Ivory Coast’s 2010-11 political crisis when the previous ruler, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to step down despite losing to Mr Ouattara in the presidential elections.

The Ivorian Catholic Church was put in a delicate position since some of the country’s bishops favoured Mr Gbagbo from the country’s majority Christian south and Mr Ouattara is from the largely Muslim north.

Since the crisis, relations between the church and President Ouattara have improved, with the president and his Christian wife meeting Pope Benedict XVI in Rome last month and agreeing on the role of the Catholic Church in terms of encouraging and promoting human rights, dialogue and national reconciliation in the country.

The Ivory Coast is divided in terms of religion with around 40 per cent of its Muslim and another 40 per cent Christian.