ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 23, 2023 / 16:15 pm
A Syrian priest, whose appointment as archbishop was confirmed by Pope Francis on Jan. 7, shared the difficult times he spent being held hostage by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group and the importance of the “spirit of forgiveness.”
In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, Father Jacques Mourad, elected archbishop of Homs, Syria, by the Synod of Bishops of the Patriarchal Church of Antioch of the Syrians, Eastern-rite Catholics in communion with Rome, recalled that when he was kidnapped by ISIS along with a postulant from his congregation, the jihadists were trying to “convert us to Islam.”
However, despite the risk of death, he recalled in that situation how other Christians “had the courage and enthusiasm to respond in order to testify to their faith.”
Despite the danger our lives were in, he stressed, “we are disciples of Jesus crucified and risen.”