ITALIAN MISSIONARY SET FREE FROM KIDNAPPING

The Italian Society for Africa Missions (SMA) missionary Father Pier Luigi Maccalli has finally been set free, on Tuesday, 6 October, more than two years after he was originally abducted in the diocese of Niamey in Niger, on 17 February 2018.

"The release of Father Pier Luigi Maccalli is the most precious gift for World Mission Sunday"

This is the first reaction of Fr. Antonio Porcellato, Superior General of the Society for Africa Missions, after the release of Father Pier Luigi Maccalli, who was kidnapped in Niger on September 17, 2018: "The joy of our great family of the Society of African Missions is immense. Our gratitude to God is even greater.

"The missionary is the man of the Word, of the announcement… without a Bible, without the Word of God and the Eucharist, Fr. Gigi said he learned to listen to silence: The silence of the great Sahara desert, the inner silence. Like the prophet Isaiah, Fr. Gigi could feel the presence of God in silence, in solitude. He found that God always gave him strength".

Fr. Gigi said that "in the desert he felt abandoned, he did not know where his captors took him each time. He had doubts… But he never lost hope, trust, and the sense of God's presence that accompanied him everywhere".