A video has emerged of Salesian Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, who was kidnapped by terrorists last year, in which the priest appeals for his release. The new footage has has led to widespread calls for diplomatic efforts to end his captivity.
The priest was kidnappedduring an attack in March on a nursing home in Yemen run by the Missionaries of Charity. Four sisters and 12 others were murdered in the attack.
In the video, a visibly weak Fr Uzhunnalil made an emotional appeal for support from politicians and churchmen, claiming that he has been ignored.
The next day, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, India’s minister of state for parliamentary affairs, visited Cardinal George Alencherry, leader of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, at Church headquarters in Cochin.
The minister told Cardinal Alencherry that the government is “doing everything possible”.
Fr Uzhunnalil’s message appeared to blame both the Indian government and Church officials for failing to secure his release. He claimed that his captors had made contact with the Indian government several times but “nothing has been done seriously in my regard.”
He went on: “If I were a European priest, I would have been taken more seriously. I am from India. I am perhaps not considered as of much value … Dear Pope Francis, dear Holy Father, as a father please take care of my life.”
Fr Uzhunnalil said he was increasingly unwell and depressed. Archbishop Maria Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum, president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, demanded Fr Uzhunnalil’s release “without further delay”.
Holy See diplomat: Western Christians face intolerance too
A Holy See diplomat has said that Christians face increasing discrimination, even in countries where there is not obvious persecution.
Mgr Janusz Urbanczyk, the Holy See’s permanent representative to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was speaking last month at a conference in Vienna on combating intolerance against Christians across the OSCE region. This includes 57 countries in Europe, Central Asia and North America.
Mgr Urbanczyk said that even though the OSCE region does not see “blatant and violent persecution” of Christians as in some parts of the world, “manifestations of intolerance, hate crimes and episodes of violence or vandalism against religious places or objects continue to increase”.
This “worrying trend”, he said, entailed “aggressively orchestrated actions, especially in the media and in public discourse, against Christians and all others who express peacefully their religious views, traditions and values”.
He added that “believers who share publicly their convictions are often labelled as intolerant or accused of bigotry”.
Francis prays for peace in 2017
Pope Francis addressed his Christmas message to “all peoples, especially those scarred by war and harsh conflicts that seem stronger than the yearning for peace”.
In the Urbi et Orbi address, given at Christmas and Easter, the Pope wished for “peace to the peoples who suffer because of the economic ambitions of the few, because of the sheer greed and the idolatry of money, which leads to slavery”.
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