The tragic anniversary of the Jesuit priest’s disappearance is approaching. There has been no definite news about his whereabouts since the summer of 2013. The kidnapping took place in Syria
“Paolo’s absence has been very painful because he is a very cultured man who has given his life in service of dialogue and peace; he defended the rights of man in this devastated region.” This is how Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako remembered the Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio, long before the one thousand day anniversary of his disappearance. But why is it important, not so much for us but for Syrians to keep the memory of Fr. Dall’Oglio alive? The Italian Jesuit’s story is objectively connected to those of the two bishops – the Syrian Orthodox bishop Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and the Greek Orthodox bishop Boulos Yazigi who were kidnapped in Syria on 22 April 2013, before him. Not surprisingly, on Sunday Pope Francis once again called for his release. Three dramatic kidnappings like those of so many Syrians who were kidnapped or sucked into the dark Syrian vortice years ago. Perhaps this is the reason why it is worth Syrians remembering the pastor who became one of them to the core.
A day or so before 29 July 2013, even though he was aware of the fact that a recent expulsion decree meant he was under special surveillance, Fr. Dall’Oglio was unable to walk away from his mission which involved staying by the side of the Syrian people. His decision was spontaneous and informed. In fact, in a letter to some friends, he added a note saying: “If you can, remember me in your prayers”. Who knows what they understood from this: but he had understood everything. Not so much the personal risk he was taking, which he took into account, but the risk Syrians faced in their search for a democratic way of life in Raqqa, a city that quickly fell into the hands of ISIS, with new terrible repercussions. Many were surprised; but I don’t think he was.
The Church which goes forth, inclusiveness and a grassroots government
He entered from Turkey, says Michel Weiss in an article published by the Daily Beast. He would meet regularly with a Christian Orthodox Syrian refugee called Hind Aboud Kabauat: “He was always telling me, ‘Hind, we can’t be sitting and lecturing others. We need to go to the people. Because this is freedom and democracy, from the people to the people. This is exactly what Jesus wants and what Jesus did. He did not sit in his home’.”
He would talk to this woman about the Church going forth and once he got to Gaziantep, on the Turkish-Syrian border, he was interviewed by a Syrian journalist, Rami Jarrah, which only recently appeared on the web. This interview may have got to the heart of this vision of going forth: “Dear Syrian friends,” the interview reads, “if each of us closes our minds and believes that things will go as we want them to, we will be disappointed: in this way though, they would go as the devil wants them to, all of us would lose the country and we would lose one another. My dear friends, let us instead think about what we can do to get the country back onto the path of understanding, peaceful co-existence, fraternity and mature democracy.” It started here, from the effort to put an end to tyrannical ways, aware that these are facilitated by fear of the other and thus calling for a rational method and thus seeing every community as a mutual enrichment rather than a danger: “the national unity we had fell from above, like in the Napoleonic state. This is the past and it no longer works: now we want a bottom-up unity that starts from the willingness of citizens, heralding good relations with all of our neighbours: Turkmens bring to the table their special relations with Turkey, Kurds and Druzes with their brothers in the region, Shiites with other Shiites in the south of Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Why not? Each of us has our own origins, I am Catholic and I come from Rome, what’s wrong with that? If a person is Orthodox Christian they will bring to the table their special relations with Istanbul, Greece and Russia.”
In complex contexts marked by suffering, democracy is achieved with inclusiveness; this seems to be the real message the Jesuit wished to get across, convinced as he was of the urgent need for a grassroots government. A “candid” idea? What is the alternative to “candour”? Not surprisingly, the interview continued as such: “We need to place all these ethnicities within a framework of human understanding characterised by religiosity. Some of us say that “religion belongs to God, the homeland belongs to everyone”. Not everyone is a fan of this phrase coined by Fares al-Khoury (the father of Syrian independence, Ed.). They think the homeland cannot belong to everyone if we do not leave God out of it. I do not deny this saying which many Syrians, Christians and Muslims are so fond of but I want a plural and harmonious country, where religiosity reigns, in other words, where people love one another because they are human beings, God’s creations, meaning they have rights, dignity and deserve respect. Religiosity means looking at each other as God looks at his creations. This brings me back to the optimism and willingness to build the Syria we want: a parliamentary, presidential, federal and united Syria, as it was before or with more regional autonomy … we will build it as we want!” Rights and dignity, i.e. one common “citizenship”.
The crucial aspect of citizenship
When he arrived in Raqqa, he was greeted by the “usual” crowds and set out his objectives: “I have come here, prompted by the sad news of my friend Ahmad al-Hajj Saleh’s kidnapping. He gave me an Abrahamic welcome in Tall Abiad when I went past there in February […] I have come to ask Syrians, remind Syrians to ask myself: basically, guys, let’s do something to restore peace and focus on achieving the right goal, freedom for all Syrians. And to preserve it!” Maybe he went to dinner at the house of a dear friend of his, Suad Nufal, a Muslim woman. Perhaps they went out together as she used to walk up to the local ISIS headquarters after dinner, stand there in dark trousers and lay claim to her rights as a human being.
Sister Francesca speaks
The kidnapping by ISIS militants – which ISIS never claimed responsibility for – gave rise to all sorts of speculations, which rubbed salt in the wound. Sister Francesca Dall’Oglio said: “These 1000 days of uncertainty and concern over Paolo’s fate, with a steady flow of contradictory news stories have been very difficult for all of us. But what we also know for certain is that for Paolo, this was where he was meant to be, in line with his “calling”: at the side of the devastated Syrian people whom he loves so much, being a shepherd to his sheep.”
