Italy: High-level meeting honors priest kidnapped in Syria
On July 24, His Excellency Jacques Mourad, Syriac Archbishop of Homs, Syria, along with Sandra Sarti and Alessandro Monteduro, president and director of ACN Italy, respectively, met with Alfredo Mantovano, Undersecretary of State to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in Italy. The Syriac Archbishop of Aleppo, Antoine Chahda, and the Syriac Bishop of Aretusa, Rami al-Kabalan, were also in attendance.
Archbishop Jacques Mourad founded the monastic community of Deir Mar Musa with Italian Jesuit c, who was kidnapped 10 years ago in Raqqa on July 29th, 2013. Archbishop Mourad began the meeting by expressing his hope that the search for Father Dall’Oglio and the other kidnapped faithful continue. The Syriac Catholic Archbishop also spoke about the suffering of the Syrian people, who are badly affected by the current embargo. The sanctions imposed by the international community, he said, only hurt the people, and Christians in particular, not the government. This fact, in addition to the mass emigration of young people facing low salaries and few jobs, makes it increasingly likely that the political and military events of recent years will lead to the gradual disappearance of Christians in the Middle East.
Archbishop Antoine Chahda denounced the lack of revenue, without which Syrians cannot for utilities, like electricity, food, and medicine. And Bishop Rami Al-Kabalan highlighted the importance of the Catholic educational system. Many schools have closed or been nationalized, negatively affecting curricular learning and the dialogue between different religious groups, which helps in avoiding radicalization.
Sarti and Monteduro recalled that before the armed conflict, which has lasted more than a decade, Christians made up 10 percent of the population, or two million people, whereas estimates now say that there are just talk then between 300,000 and 500,000.
Representatives from ACN Italy also said that because of the sanctions, the difficulty of transferring funds and importing goods makes humanitarian aid almost impossible. Even though the sanctions officially include exceptions for humanitarian aid, in practice, these do not work. The European IBAN bank code system and the American SWIFT system block all transfers to Syria, even for humanitarian reasons. But the funds that ACN sends are essential to helping Church-run institutions as they provide goods required to communities in need. And in their appeal to the international community, so ACN Italy quoted Pope Francis’s address to the Vatican’s Diplomatic Corps in February: “My thoughts also turn to Yemen and beloved Syria, where, in addition to other serious emergencies, a large part of the population experiences food insecurity, and children are suffering from malnutrition. In various cases, humanitarian crises are aggravated by economic sanctions, which often affect mainly the more vulnerable segments of the population rather than political leaders. While understanding the reasons for imposing sanctions, the Holy See does not view them as effective and hopes that they will be relaxed, not least to improve the flow of humanitarian aid, especially medicines and healthcare equipment, so very necessary in this time of pandemic.”
Speaking on behalf of the Italian government, Mantovano expressed his solidarity with the Syriac Archbishop of Homs, regarding the dramatic, unresolved kidnapping of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, assuring him that Italy will continue to search for him, especially through its intelligence services.
The Undersecretary of State also said that economic sanctions should not impede the provision of essential aid to the population, since the embargo currently frustrates all efforts to support the most threatened communities, beginning with Christians. The Italian government will discuss with its allies, especially within the European Union, how best to introduce changes to the current system of sanctions, to help restore hope to a war-weary population.
