Paolo Dall’oglio is the chaplain of the largest Syrian parish, that of the missing. It is estimated between 100 and 200,000, the number of Syrians who rest in the mass graves that we discover around the barracks, well aligned in narrow ditches or piled up in a confused melee. There are the victims of the Assad regime and those of the Islamic State. The Italian Jesuit was suspicious of the henchmen as well as the other, never ceased to advocate the dialogue between the communities during the thirty years he spent in the country. In Europe, Islamo-Christian dialogue is an intellectual posture and a sinecure. In the Middle East, a more adventurous challenge. In Syria at war, it was devoted to the martyrdom and no doubt he died. For twelve years, we do not know where Father Paolo has gone. Last week, we thought we had finally found it.
The hostage not found
It was in the ephemeral capital of the Islamic State that he disappeared on July 27, 2013. He went there to obtain the release of Syrians taken in hostages. He also hoped to meet Al-Bagdadi. The Islamic court laughed at him. The impudence of this Kafir! They then came to stop him. They coldly murdered one of those who accompanied him and who refused to abandon him to his fate. In the Islamic State, in the Baas State, militiamen had all impunity. In today’s Syria, too. Then, the High Silhouette of Father Paolo was vanished. Italian secret services have never dropped the investigation. Their American or Arab networks, those of the Vatican, were mobilized to find this man devil. Pope Francis himself called for his release. In vain. Liberated prisoners said they had crossed it. Others believed him delivered to the Bashar police. Unless he was seen in the last square, in Baghouz, the Daesh Sigmaringen on the Iraqi border. All those who have known this athlete of the faith struggle to imagine it executed in a cul-de-basse-fosse like any Syrian. He had so much charisma, inner freedom, such a fiery life! And would there be the only European hostage that is not found? Father Paolo has thus become the most famous ghost in Syria where they are countless.
The habit does not make martyr
And then, last week, we thought we had identified it at the opening of a common pit, in the vicinity of Raqqa. One of the poor victims of Daesh wore the clothes of a priest. A cassock, a chasuble, a Roman pass? Immediately, the Arab phone stuck the news in Europe where his friends have long hoped to see him come out of hell. The apostolic nonce has remained cautious: it awaits the report of the local Jesuits. The family does not want to believe it: Father Paolo wore clothes, always the same. Poverty uniform with a cross on the back of its gray jacket. It is not the habit that is martyred. But to accept sacrifice. Father Paolo’s life and his supposed death are a testimony. At the time of his ordination, he wrote: “Islam constitutes an ordeal, a challenge, an indirect call to conversion to know and imitate Jesus Christ, for Christians of the Near East as for the entire Church. »» His testimony is also political. He believed Islamo-Christian dialogue capable of protecting the Church in the Middle East. He would undoubtedly have given a chance to the fragile regime of Ahmed al-Charaa. But he who experienced a mysterious end would have claimed more transparency. To save itself, Syria must end the secret, the lie, the silence which continues to reign there as master.
