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By Anthony Vargas, Reporter
AN Italian priest was snatched by
heavily armed men Sunday morning while on his way to celebrate Mass
in a village in Zamboanga Sibugay.
Initial reports reaching Camp
Crame said Fr. John Carlo Bossi was snatched by bonnet wearing men
in Barangay Bulawan in Payao town.
The provincial police chief,
Senior Supt. Francisco Cristobal Jr., said the 57-year-old Bossi,
who hails from Milan, is a member of the Pontifical Institute for
Foreign Missions or PIME and was assigned in Payao on April 1.
PIME is an international
apostolic life society of priests, brothers and lay people that
dedicate their lives to mission among the non-Christian community
all over the globe.
Cristobal said Bossi was riding a
motorcycle to Bulawan from the two proper when he was blocked by
at least 10 men.
At gunpoint he was dragged away
by the group.
Cristobal said he had ordered
checkpoints set to intercept the priest’s abductors.
Police and military officials
said no demands have been received from the group.
The Agence France-Presse said
police identified the leader of armed gunmen as Aka Kedie, a
renegade leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The MILF denied it had played any
part in the kidnapping, but said it was prepared to help the
government secure his release.
Bossi is the third Italian priest
to have been kidnapped in Mindanao in the past 10 years.
In 1998, Muslim rebels snatched
Fr. Luciano Benedetti in Zamboanga del Norte and held him captive
for 10 weeks before freeing in exchange for unknown amount.
Three years later, the Pentagon
gang abducted Fr. Giuseppi Pierantoni of Bologna while he was
holding Mass in a parish church in Dimataling, Zamboanga del Sur.
Pierantoni escaped after six
months in captivity.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu
condemned Bossi’s kidnapping as un-Islamic, adding that Kedie’s
group has long ceased to obey the MILF command structure.
“That group is not MILF. We
express our readiness to extend whatever assistance we can give to
the Philippine authorities,” Kabalu said.
Shortly after Bossi was
kidnapped, Pope Benedict XVI condemned kidnappings in Colombia and
elsewhere as “despicable acts.”
“Unfortunately, I am frequently
requested to intercede for people, among them Catholic priests, held
captive for various reasons in various parts of the world,” the
Pope told thousands of pilgrims in Saint Peter’s Square during his
Angelus message on Sunday.
 --With
AFP
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