Charity.

ZENIT: Released Iraqi Priest Praying for Captors
BAGHDAD, Iraq, SEPT. 13, 2006

(Zenit.org).- The Chaldean priest who spent almost a month in captivity said that he had an acute awareness of God's protection during his ordeal.

Just hours after his release Monday, Father Hanna Saad Sirop told the charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) about his hard experience in captivity and expressed his forgiveness of his abductors.

The 34-year-old Iraqi also expressed his gratitude for those who worked and prayed for his safe return.

Father Sirop, who serves at St. Jacob's Church in the Dora district of Baghdad, heads the theological section of Babel College, run by the Catholic Church in Baghdad. He had planned to go to Rome in early September to study, with the support of ACN.

An ACN communiqué today confirmed that the Chaldean priest telephoned his relatives and friends the minute he was released. The reunion with his loved ones was a "very big moment," he said.

Father Sirop stressed how prayer for his release has "united" large sectors of Iraq at a time of near civil war.

"I want to thank all those people who helped me with their prayers. That really was a miracle for me," he told ACN. "From the moment I was kidnapped, I felt God was with me. I began to say: 'God, you are my protector. You will be with me in my pain.'"

The Chaldean priest expressed to the international charity his willingness to forgive his captors. "I do not hate them," he said. "I pray for them -- I continue to pray for them."