_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Kidnapped priest is freed
Ransom reports are denied
On April 8, the Fides news service broke the story that an Italian missionary priest who had been kidnapped and held for six months by guerillas in the Philippines had finally been set free. Father Giuseppe Pierantoni, a Dehonian missionary, had been abducted from his parish in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, last October 17.

Upon his release, Father Pierantoni was taken by police to the presidential palace in Manila, where he was greeted by President Gloria Arroyo. The missionary, who was apparently in good health, remarked of his release: “This is a miracle!”

The details of the missionary priest’s kidnapping and release are not clear. Church officials in the Philippines believe that he was abducted by a splinter group of Islamic rebels; kidnapping has been a frequent activity among the Muslim guerillas operating in Mindanao. But the exact identity of his captors is not yet known.

There have also been reports that the priest’s release came after payment of a $20,000 ransom. Fides said that such reports have been both repeated and denied.

Father Pierantoni himself told the news agency that the kidnapping had produced a radical change in his own life, because “I had so much time for prayer.”