“The priest was kidnapped by three masked people in the early afternoon at his Mar Elian Monastery in the town of Qaryatayn, while he was preparing to welcome an expected influx of refugees from Palmyra.” Father Jacques Mourad had “succeeded the Italian Jesuit Priest Paolo Dall`Oglio as the head of the Mar Moussa Monastery, which is linked to Mar Elian, after Dall`Oglio was kidnapped in 2013 from the northern Aleppo province.” Mourad “worked to foster inter-religious dialogue…”
His kidnapping vividly illustrates what a hollow and self-defeating exercise that “dialogue” is, and how mistaken the Church is to place so much hope upon it. Even worse, Fr. Mourad’s brethren in the West actively discourage honest discussion of the reasons why Christians are being persecuted in the Middle East, for fear that such discussion will harm their “dialogue” with Muslims in the West. The blood is on the hands of these comfortable, complacent and deluded bishops, and before too long, because of their willful blindness, the fate of Fr. Mourad and the other persecuted Christians of the Middle East will be their fate also.
“Priest kidnapped in Homs region of Syria: NGO,” AFP, May 22, 2015:
A priest of the Syriac Catholic Church in the western Syrian city of Homs was kidnapped Thursday along with one of his colleagues, the NGO l`Oeuvre d`Orient told AFP Friday.
Father Jacques Mourad was seized with another Christian originating from Aleppo, who was helping the priest.
“The priest was kidnapped by three masked people in the early afternoon at his Mar Elian Monastery in the town of Qaryatayn, while he was preparing to welcome an expected influx of refugees from Palmyra,” said the NGO, referring to the central Syrian city which was recently captured by the Islamic State group….
According to Father Kamil Semaan, of the Syriac Catholic Patriarchy in Beirut, armed men stormed the monastery in the early afternoon. Others present tried to intervene, but the gunmen took Mourad and his colleague in the priest`s car, Semaan told AFP.
Several hours before being taken, Mourad had refused to leave the monastery, despite the threat of the Islamic State group in the region. “As the priest and pastor, I will never leave this place so long as there are people here, unless they hunt me down,” said the priest.
Mourad had been at the monastery for the last 15 years. He succeeded the Italian Jesuit Priest Paolo Dall`Oglio as the head of the Mar Moussa Monastery, which is linked to Mar Elian, after Dall`Oglio was kidnapped in 2013 from the northern Aleppo province.
The NGO said that Mourad worked to foster inter-religious dialogue, and worked with both Christians and Muslims.