Syria conflict claims another captive: Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio

Religion News Service is reporting that Jesuit priest and founder of the Mar Musa monastic communityin Syria, Paolo Dall'Oglio, has been kidnapped by Syrian rebels. Dall'Oglio is a well-known promoter of peace and dialogue among Christians, Muslims, and Jews. I visited his community in Syria in 2010 and interviewed him for US Catholic. You can read the USC interview with him here; there are some pictures of the monastery, with its ancient fresco murals, as well.

It's another sad chapter in the destruction of a country with so many wonders–religious, cultural, architectural–and so much diversity, religious and otherwise. I remember watching Palm Sunday processions of the different ancient Christian churches–Latin, Armenian, Maronite, Chaldean, and Melkite, to name a few–through the streets of the Old City of Damascus, which also featured numerous mosques and holy sites associated with different branches of Islam. Now I wonder what will become of it.

Pray for Syria. Pray for Paolo.

About the author

Bryan Cones

Bryan Cones is a writer living in Chicago.