The Rosary was the only support Fr Pierluigi Maccalli had during the time he was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in Africa.
The above are the words of Father Antonio Porcellato, Superior General of the Society of African Missions (SMA), after welcoming Father Maccalli at Ciampino airport in Rome, on the afternoon of October 9, 2020. Father Maccalli was released after two years of imprisonment by jihadists in Niger and Burkina Faso, before being released on October 8, 2020, in Mali. Picking up Father Maccalli and an Italian engineer who was also kidnapped, were Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio of Italy, along with Father Superior General Porcellato.
Father Maccalli is 59 years old, originally from the province of Cremona, northern Italy, working in the parish of Bomoanga, in the diocese of Niamey, was kidnapped by eight Muslims, on the night of September 17-18, 2018, in Niger. , bordering the country Burkina Faso.
Father Superior Porcellato said that during the two years of his imprisonment, the Muslim army tried to persuade him to convert to Islam many times, but they were not successful. Father Maccalli recounts that “my only support was prayer and to find comfort I tied a rosary with a string and I said it three times a day, and so I got the seal.” strong image for his father's release, the day after the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary."
Before his release, his captors had to admit that they had not succeeded in making him a Muslim, but they still wished him "one day to become a Muslim." . They told their father straight that they were not Mafia rogues and defined themselves as “believers”. This proves that they belong to the radical Islamic world and that their purpose is not just political or economic.
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