BAGHDAD, Iraq (Catholic Online) – A Chaldean priest kidnapped almost a month
ago and for whom Pope Benedict XVI appealed for his release was reportedly
freed Sept. 11.
AsiaNews reported Sept. 12 that sources in the Iraqi capital
have confirmed the release of 34-year-old Father Saad Hanna Sirop Hanna 27 days
after he was forced from his car by masked kidnappers following an Aug. 15
evening Mass.
The Vatican nunciature here confirmed the release and that the priest is well,
but tired.
Father Hanna, ordained in Rome in 2001, is in charge of the theological
department of Babel College, the country’s only university of Christian
religious studies, here and serves at St. Jacob Parish in Dora, a neighborhood
of Baghdad.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his Aug. 19 message sent by Vatican Secretary of State
Cardinal Angelo Sodano to Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad,
offered “a heartfelt appeal to the abductors to release the young priest at once
so that he can return to the service of God, the Christian community and his
countrymen."
The pope's thoughts "also go to all the victims of abduction in your country,
and he prays that this dreadful scourge, as well as the terrible daily bloodshed
which delays the dawn of reconciliation and rebuilding, will finally come to an
end," Cardinal Sodano said in the message.
