Not So Fast... Was the Missing Indian Priest Really Crucified by ISIS on Good Friday?

Anto Akkara : Mar 31, 2016
Charisma News

"Several journalists called me today, and I told them, 'This is all rumor.' But some of them have gone public." -from a cousin of Rev. Uzhunnalil.

[World Watch Monitor] A flurry of news reports both confirming as well as denying the alleged crucifixion of an Indian priest at the hands of the Islamic State on Good Friday created anxiety and confusion among Christians around the world. (Photo: Courtesy/World Watch Monitor/Charisma News)

The tension was most palpable at the home parish of Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil, a 56-year-old Catholic priest in Ramapuram—a traditional Catholic stronghold under the Diocese of Palai, in India's southern Kerala state.
 
Uzhunnalil, a member of the missionary order of Salesians, was abducted on March 4 from a Missionaries of Charity home for the aged in Aden, Yemen. Sixteen people, including four nuns of Mother Teresa's charity, were murdered in an attack on the home suspected to have been carried out by militants allied with the so-called Islamic State. At the time, the priest went missing, and was then presumed abducted. 
 
According to the Washington Times, his alleged captors had reportedly issued a threat to kill him in the same way Jesus was put to death—on a cross. None of this apparent explanation of initial events has been able to be verified so far.
 
"Is it true?" was the repeated question that came by phone to Rev. George Njarakunnel, the parish priest of Ramapuram, on the afternoon of March 28, as Indian news channels started displaying breaking news tickers: "abducted Indian priest crucified."
 
As it turned out, the rumor of Uzhannalil's crucifixion appeared to be false, the product of misinterpretations. It arose in the Easter sermon of one of Pope Francis' most senior Cardinals, Christoph Schonbrunn of Vienna, who had hinted that the abducted Indian priest was crucified by Islamic State on Good Friday in Yemen.
 
Sources told World Watch Monitor that Schonbrunn had based his remarks on a misunderstanding of a March 26 communication from the Archbishop of Bangalore, Bernard Moras. These had then been picked up by Austrian and Polish media, while official Vatican news sources remained silent. On March 28, Bishop Paul Hinder of Southern Arabia, in Saudi Arabia, told Catholic News Agency that there were "strong indications" Uzhannalil is still alive.
 
That didn't stop the...
 
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