IRAQ: CAPTORS RELEASE CHALDEAN PRIEST

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Fr. Saad Sirop

A Chaldean Catholic priest taken hostage nearly a month ago was set free by his captors in Baghdad on Monday night (September 11).

Father Saad Sirop confirmed his “miracle” release to Compass, speaking by telephone from Baghdad today.

After his kidnappers abandoned him on a dark Baghdad street about 8 p.m. on Monday, Fr. Sirop said, he telephoned his brother to come and pick him up.

The 34-year-old priest said that he did not know where he had been hidden during his 28 days of captivity since he was kept blindfolded. Although Fr. Sirop confirmed that he was well, he admitted his ordeal was “a little bit difficult” for him. But he declined to give any more details “as a matter of security.”

“I am still scared a little bit from the whole thing,” he said. “But I think that in the end, God did what He wanted.” The priest said he never stopped believing that he would be rescued.

“I was always praying Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,’” Fr. Sirop said. “I was sure that God would rescue me, and He would be with me.”

His voice breaking, the priest went on to thank everyone who had prayed for him during his weeks of captivity. “Really, [these] prayers gave me a great power to get through it, until God saved me,” he said.

Fr. Sirop was kidnapped on the evening of August 15 as he returned home from celebrating mass in Baghdad’s Doura district at St. James parish, widely mistranslated as St. Jacob’s parish.

After his abduction was confirmed by Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, Pope Benedict XVI appealed publicly for his release on August 19.

Fr. Sirop’s captors finally contacted Patriarch Emmanuel on August 22, demanding an $800,000 ransom in exchange for the priest’s release.

“The patriarch told them he doesn’t have this amount, he can’t pay,” Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, told Compass. “If we start to give them money from the church, they will kidnap another priest every day.”

After tense days of silence, Patriarch Emmanuel told the Missionary International Service News Agency on September 2 that he had spoken by telephone with Fr. Sirop on August 26. The kidnappers had reportedly promised during that call to release the priest immediately.

When still the missing priest was not returned, Monsignor Philip Najim made another appeal last week on behalf of the Chaldean Patriarchate for Fr. Sirop’s release over the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera TV channel.

No explanation has been given for Fr. Sirop’s eventual release two days ago.

 

Flourishing Business

Today the priest confirmed that he was preparing to leave for Rome this month to continue his doctoral studies in philosophy and theology. He had been directing the Theology Department at the Catholic Church’s Babel College in Baghdad.

 

Father Raad Washan

In a previous Baghdad kidnapping in early August, Father Raad Washan was snatched by ransom-seekers and held for two days before managing to escape them. The Chaldean priest had been subjected to cigarette burns and was gagged and beaten, according to a report from the U.K.-based Aid to the Church in Need charity.

 

Chaldean Catholics, who belong to an Eastern rite church in communion with Rome, are the largest Christian community in Iraq.

 

 

Kidnapping has become a flourishing business in Iraq, where an average of 30 to 40 Iraqis were being abducted weekly this past spring, according to research released in August by The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

 

 

Compass Direct News