Cardinal Alencherry satisfied on government efforts to release kidnapped priest, Rev Tom

Mangalore Today News Network

Kumily, Feb 06, 2017: Cardinal George Alencherry has expressed happiness over the federal government’s efforts to free an Indian priest abducted in Yemen, last year 2016.

However, the head of the Syro-Malabar Church pointed that the “very bad” situation now prevailing in Yemen hinders efforts to release Salesian priest Tom Uzhunnalil.

The 58-year-old priest was taken into custody on March 4, 2016, by Islamic militants from a home for elderly managed by the Missionaries of Charity at Aden, a port city in southern Yemen.

The Church authorities in India are satisfied with the initiatives taken by the federal government to get the priest released, the cardinal said while addressing the 50th anniversary of the Augustinian Sisters’ presence at Spring Valley in Kumily, a hill town in the Idukki district of Kerala, southern India.

The cardinal’s comments came four days before a sit-in the diocese of Faridabad plans to hold in New Delhi to pressurize the federal government to speed up efforts to release Father Uzhunnalil.  The Syro-Malabar diocese is organizing the one-hour program on February 6 in collaboration with the Catholic Congress at Jantar Mantar, a popular venue for civil protests in the national capital.

A media note from the diocese says the dharna (sit-in) aims to “pressurize” the federal government to find out the kidnapped priest and to take necessary actions for his release.  “This dharnna is more significant at this point of time as the Parliament budget assembly will be going on those days. Bishops, priests and MPs will be part of this dharnna,” it was officially stated.