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28

U.S. priests’ prayers answered with release of missionary

Posted By reynor | Filed Under News & Current Events 

By Michael Wojcik  | The Beacon (www.patersondiocese.org)  |  7/27/2007

WAYNE, N.J. (The Beacon) - Priests of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) here joined the chorus of countless other concerned people around the world who are rejoicing that their prayers were answered when “one of their own” - PIME Father Giancarlo Bossi - was freed by kidnappers in the southern Philippines after 39 days in captivity.

“We are very happy,” said a joyful Father Giancarlo Ghezzi, the PIME community’s rector and vocation director, who knew the freed Father Bossi, known affectionately in the Philippines as the “gentle giant,” when he served there from 1990 to 1997. The two priests saw each other for retreats, Father Ghezzi said.

Now Father Ghezzi intends to make good on his promise - to hold a Thanksgiving Mass when Father Bossi was released. It will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m., Monday, July 30 at Annunciation Church, Wayne. The liturgy will coincide with the anniversary of the PIME religious order, founded in 1851, he said.

The 57-year-old Father Bossi, who has faithfully served in the Philippines for 24 years, was released unharmed but quite thin, Catholic News Service (CNS) reported. The priest was released on the southern island of Mindanao, in the Ipil Prelature in the southern Philippines, where he ministers, after 14 government soldiers were killed searching for him.

“I am well,” he told AsiaNews, a Rome-based news agency sponsored by his order. “I’m happy because I just spoke to my family. Before returning to Italy, I would like to go and greet my parishioners in Payao (where he serves).”

Father Bossi said his captors claimed they had kidnapped him at gunpoint on behalf of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which is believed to have ties to al-Qaida. The priest, whose release was announced on his mother’s 87th birthday, said he was told that the kidnappers were hoping for a large ransom.

“I never had the feeling they wanted to kill me,” he said. And he was never threatened with death “or violence of any kind.”

The priest said he lost about 15 pounds in the 39 days on a diet of rice and dried fish. On another positive note, Father Bossi said he quit smoking, after he had trouble catching his breath as his captors led him up a hill, CNS reported.

Father Bossi’s mission was disrupted when the Italian priest was abducted from Payao on the Mindanao Island while he was traveling to celebrate Sunday Mass. He was the second missionary priest kidnapped in the region in recent years.

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of The Beacon (www.patersondiocese.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Paterson, N.J.

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