Beirut to host commemoration service for kidnapped Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio
On 29 July 2022, as from 7:00pm, friends of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio will host a vigil at the Jesuit church St. Joseph in Ashrafieh, Beirut. The vigil will be followed by a private screening of the documentary film "Ayouni" (2021) by Yasmin Fedda.
Dall'Oglio was kidnapped by the Islamic State group in Raqqa, Syria, while negotiating the release of hostages from captivity. For 9 years, family and friends of Paolo Dall'Oglio have been waiting for answers about his whereabouts, pressing public authorities in Italy and Syria to release information.
“This Friday, July 29th, 2022, friends of Father Paolo will pay tribute to his life-long dedication to inter-religious dialogue by hosting an Islamic-Christian commemoration at St. Joseph's Church in Beirut, Lebanon. The service is dedicated to all those who disappeared in Syria over the last 11 years of war and oppression,” a press release said.
The 60-minute film “Ayouni” by acclaimed Palestinian director Yasmin Fedda will be screened in the crypt of the church as from 7:30pm. Investigating the nature of forced disappearances during the Syrian conflict, the film highlights the fates of ‘Abuna Paolo’ and of digital rights activist Bassel Safadi, as well as the harrowing experience of those left behind. Hailed by Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian as “a raging lament for Syria's disappeared” this will be the first private screening of the film in Lebanon.
- Order of Events -
18:30 - Regular mass inside St. Joseph’s church
19:00 - Islamic-Christian Vigil in the forecourt of the church
19:30 - Introduction and screening of “Ayouni” inside St. Joseph’s church
21:00 - Conclusion
- Biography of Paolo Dall'Oglio -
Paolo Dall'Oglio, born on 17 November 1954, is an Italian Jesuit Priest and peace activist. At the age of 21, Dall'Oglio entered the Jesuit order in Rome. He studied at Université Saint-Joseph of Beirut, as well as in Damascus, Naples and Rome, earning a PhD from the Pontifical Gregorian University. Known in Syria and Lebanon as Abuna Paolo, he lived for 30 years at Deir Mar Musa, a 6th century monastery, 50km north of Damascus, which he reconstructed and reinvested with a new ecumenical monastic community, Al-Khalil, dedicated to Abrahamic Hospitality. Deir Mar Musa has since become a major center for interfaith dialogue. Abuna Paolo was declared persona-non-grata by the government of Syria in 2012 for denouncing crimes against humanity committed by the Assad regime. He returned to Syria three times before being kidnapped by the IS group on 29 July 2013 in Raqqa. His fate is still unknown. Several reports about his presumed death have been proven wrong.
- About "Ayouni” -
Noura and Machi search for answers about their loved ones – Bassel Safadi and Paolo Dall’Oglio, who are among the over 100,000 forcibly disappeared in Syria. Faced with the limbo of an overwhelming absence of information, hope is the only thing they have to hold on to. ‘Ayouni’ is a deeply resonant Arabic term of endearment -- meaning ‘my eyes’ and understood as ‘my love’. Filmed over 6 years and across multiple countries in search of answers, Ayouni is an attempt to give numbers faces, to give silence a voice, and to make the invisible undeniably visible.
