Father Pallu Freed

Good news!!!!  The RMS priest, Father Maurizio Pallu, who was kidnapped in Nigeria, was freed!  He is unharmed and doing very well.  According to Vatican Insider:

SALVATORE CERNUZIO

ROME

Last night, Father Maurizio Pallù, the travelling Italian priest of the Neocatechumenal Way, kidnapped last Friday in southern Nigeria, was released at about 10:00 PM. This good news arrived on the missionary’s 63rd birthday. To confirm this to Vatican Insider were sources close to priest - who in these days have followed closely the operations that led to his release. 

“Don Maurizio is okay – according to our sources - even if he was clearly proven, not so much for the way he was treated, but for the tension experienced these days”. The kidnapping was carried out by a group of local criminals who took the priest away, after having robbed him, while he and four other people were travelling by car from Calabar to Benin City for a catechesis meeting. Besides the priest, among the kidnapped were also two other Nigerian people.  

In yesterday’s phone call, Don Maurizio told us that within the group there were differences of opinion regarding the victims’ fate. In particular, one of the kidnappers, who boasted that he had already killed four people, constantly threatened them with death. The boss, on the other hand, with whom, Pallù tells us, he had “established a good relationship”, instead decided for their liberation. At the moment, there is no confirmation as to whether a redemption has been paid or not.  

In the last few days, the phases of the negotiations, followed with great attention by the crisis unit of the Farnesina, had become more delicate. The resonance of the kidnapping in the different media risked of raising the stakes with the kidnappers, considering also that this is not the first case of priest-abduction in this area of Africa, (the same Don Maurizio Pallù had already suffered an attack in October 2016) and that these kidnappings do not always end happily.  

Yesterday evening, however, the news of the release spread just before midnight. As soon as he was free, the priest contacted his friends in Nigeria and immediately afterwards, his relatives in Tuscany, in particular his 92-year-old mother Laura. It was precisely Father Maurizio’s mother who called her on Sunday evening, October 15th, to announce his imminent release.  

Pallù is currently in Nigeria, near Abuja, and will continue its mission in the coming months. He will almost certainly return for a few days to Italy to embrace the people dear to him and thank all those who have followed with participation this difficult moment. A closeness for which the priest said himself to be “deeply moved”, especially after he found out that the Pope had assured that he would pray for him.