Captors released a Franciscan priest who was among about 20 Christians kidnapped from a Syrian village near the border with Turkey. Father Hanna Jallouf was being held under house arrest in a religious residence in Knayeh, a small Christian village in northwestern Syria, according to a statement on Oct. 9 from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The statement offered no further details, and there was no immediate word on the others who were abducted with him on the night and early morning of Oct. 5-6. Brigades linked to the Al-Nusra front, a branch of Al Qaeda that operates in Syria, are believed to have been behind the abductions. A statement from the Latin Patriarchate said there had been no contact with the priest or his captors and that Franciscan nuns who were in a convent in the village took refuge in neighboring homes. Father Jallouf was one of two priests living in the village of 700 Catholic families. The kidnappings come as fighting between rebel forces and the Syrian army increased in northern sections of the country in early October.
Priest Released in Syria
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
In this episode of Inside the Vatican, Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell discuss the 2025 Jubilee Year, beginning on Christmas Eve 2024 and ending in January 2026.
Pope Francis prayed that the Jubilee Year may become “a season of hope” and reconciliation in a world at war and suffering humanitarian crises as he opened the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve.
‘If God can visit us, even when our hearts seem like a lowly manger, we can truly say: Hope is not dead; hope is alive and it embraces our lives forever!’
Inspired by his friend and mentor Henri Nouwen, Metropolitan Borys Gudziak, leader of Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S., invites listeners in his Christmas Eve homily to approach the manger with renewed awe and openness.