Dear all,
Today I was able to interview Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio, the Italian Jesuit who has been in Syria at the monastery of Deir Mar Musa for the past 30 years.

He informed me that he will be leaving Syria in the next few days. I took it for granted that he was being expelled by the regime for airing his opinions, but he then informed that it is the church that has ordered him to leave.

I have the full transcript of our conversation up on my blog, in English, worth a read.

Full transcript of interview with Fr. Dall'Oglio

Our prayers for Syria at this time!
Filipe

Gospodi, pomiluj!

Prayers for the people of Syria, both Christian and Muslim.

May God grant Father Paolo many years!

Filipe, my friend and brother,

Is it your sense that the Church believes Father Paolo to be at risk and that is why he has been ordered to leave? Or, is it that there is concern regarding his outspokenness, as possibly bringing the Church into a position that it doesn't wish to be in?

Many years,

Neil

I'd go with the latter... he didn't seem to pleased about the fact that he had to leave. Considering his activities, I don't think his personal safety is much of a concern to him.

As soon as he said the Church had ordered him to leave I asked him what the position of the church leaders was and he replied that the Church is instrumentalized by the state. I didn't want to dig deeper, but 2+2...

Filipe,

That was how I understood it. Thanks for your insights and for posting the article, interesting as always.

Any chance that you're covering the Eucharistic Congress in Ireland - specifically, the Divine Liturgy served by His Beatitude Sviatoslav?

I pray that you and your family are well, my friend.

Many years,

Neil

I am not, no.

We are little short handed here right now, so I have had less time to devote myself only to religious subjects. I have been keeping an eye on the SSPX situation, yesterday's interview was really quite a lucky break. I had a few minutes so I called Fr. Paolo, I think I was the first to publish it, from us it went to Radio Vatican, from there it must have been picked up by an Italian news agency, as it is all over the Italian press today.

All very well with my family, thanks! My youngest daughter has decided that sleeping at night is ok after all, which has been a relief. Big celebrations tonight all over and around Lisbon, for the feast of St. Anthony!

Hope all is well with you as well.

The Syrian Church may have ordered him to leave this month, but the government did order his expulsion earlier:

http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/news/index.php/tag/paolo-dalloglio/

I asked him about that. He had been ordered to leave but was then allowed to stay, so long as he kept quiet. As he explains in the interview (rather ironically), he bagan speaking out again because the Government signed a deal with the Arab League in which it claims to recognize freedom of speech.