Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil. Photo: CNS Staff Reporter
Members of the Syro-Malabar community in Northern Ireland have offered prayers for the safe release of Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, an Indian Salesian missing in Yemen since he was kidnapped by Islamic extremists last March.
Joining with a novena initiated by the Salesian community worldwide, Syro-Malabars attended a day of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St Paul’s parish on the Fall’s Road in Belfast before an evening Mass celebrated in solidarity with the missing priest.
Curate at St Paul’s, Msgr Antony Perumayan, who is also senior chaplain to some 600 Syro-Malabar Catholics in the North, said: “It was a most moving occasion, the priests and people from St Paul’s joining with us to remember Fr Tom and pray for his release. In a sense, he is a prisoner of Christ in the way that St Paul was.”
Fr Uzhunnalil was abducted when extremists stormed a Catholic nursing home in the port city of Aden, an attack which saw four nuns and others slaughtered.
Hopes for Fr Uzhunnalil were raised in December when he appeared in an online video to appeal with the Church and the international community to secure his release.