Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio reportedly alive in Syria

Great news from Syria: Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio, S.J., about whom I wrote both here and here, is being reported as alive.

“Fr. Paolo Dall’Oglio is alive and is being treated well by his kidnappers, who are members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) extremist group,” anti-regime activist Khalaf Ali Khalaf was informed by Al-Qaeda-affiliated sources close to the extremist group.

Sources saw the Italian Jesuit last Saturday in an area in northern Syria where ISIS is active, Khalaf told Aki-Adnkronos International news agency. The journalist, who is based in north-eastern Syria, did not wish to reveal the identities of his sources for fear of reprisals. Neither did he mention where exactly Dall’Oglio had been seen. The Jesuit priest went missing in the city of Raqqa on 28 July.

He had re-entered Syria in hopes of assisting peace negotiations in the Kurdish region of Syria. Over decades, he and his monastery / retreat center had become a symbol of positive Muslim-Christian relations in Syria. May he be able to continue in that work...

Michael Peppard is associate professor of theology at Fordham University and on the staff of its Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. He is the author of The World's Oldest Church and The Son of God in the Roman World, and on Twitter @MichaelPeppard. He is a contributing editor to Commonweal.