THE IRISH priest who was held hostage in the Philippines for 31 days received a rapturous welcome at Dublin airport yesterday.
Fr Michael Sinnott (79) was greeted by his family, fellow priests from the Columban Missionaries and Department of Foreign Affairs officials. “Apart from the weather, it’s always good to be back in Ireland,” he joked.
The priest, from Clonard, Co Wexford, was abducted by four men while taking an evening stroll in his residential compound in Pagadian in the troubled southern island of Mindanao on October 11th. He was released three weeks ago and has come home to spend Christmas with his family.
Looking rested and healthy, Fr Sinnott spoke of how taken aback he had been by the publicity his abduction had generated. “I feel fine, thank God. It must be the result of all the prayers that were said for me. I’d like to thank everyone for their support,” he said. “I hope I can fade back into obscurity now. The only difficult thing about this whole experience is the publicity I have been getting.”
Fr Sinnott said he never felt in danger while in captivity. His kidnappers told him they would never kill a priest. His only fear was that he might not survive if the military tried to release him by force.
He said he had built up a rapport with his captors, and bore them no ill will. “They couldn’t have done more to help me in the difficult circumstances we were living in.
“Apart from the ideological lectures I got from time to time, we were the best of friends,” he added. “The man in charge used to say I was like his father, and he was my son . . . I have no great feelings against them. I pray for them occasionally.”
Security officials in the Philippines believed the priest was being held by rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a separatist group that recently entered talks with the government in an attempt to end a decades-long conflict in the region.
Fr Sinnott’s captors moved him around several times and the priest, who underwent a heart bypass operation four years ago, was forced to hike through dense jungle and sleep under a tarpaulin.
He said he had heard about last week’s publication of the report into clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese.
“I’m working myself with a very vulnerable section of the community, including people who have suffered from abuse. It is a heinous crime for anyone in authority to abuse children, especially priests,” he said. “It’s difficult also because the morale of the good priests, the men who are doing their work day by day, is affected by all this.”
Fr Sinnott has spent some five decades working in the Philippines. He was first assigned to Mindanao in 1957 following his studies in Rome. Since 1998, he has worked with a school for children with special needs.
He said he would return to the Philippines in mid-January.
“I hope to go back to Pagadian to continue the work I have been doing for the last few years,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I want to go back? I’ve been working all my life in the Philippines, and I’ll continue to do so for as long as I can.”