Fr Luigi Maccalli, a missionary working in Boamanga, Niger, was kidnapped on 17 September 2018 by armed men and transported across the border into Mali, beginning a 750-day ordeal in the hands of Islamist fundamentalists. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he opened up about his suffering, his journey toward forgiveness, and how prayer sustained him until his release.
Realizing that his captors were jihadists rather than common criminals brought immediate anguish:
“It was like a punch in the gut. A heavy stone fell on me and crushed me. The weight was too much, and I cried tears of despair. I remember that every day we would set off on a motorbike, getting further away from the places I knew, and my anguish grew as I realised it would become increasingly difficult to escape”.
Captivity experience of Fr Luigi Maccalli and forgiving his enemies
Throughout more than two years spent in chains, the priest refused to yield to hatred. Even when facing explicit death threats—such as on 23 May, when a captor threatened to shoot him in the forehead—Fr Maccalli found comfort in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy he had engraved on the doors of his parish church in Boamanga.
“How can I love these people who have taken away my freedom, chained me every day, and threatened me with death? It was only when I was able to say, alongside the man on the cross: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’, that I was able to fully understand the new logic of the Beatitudes”.
“Hatred is a dead end. I felt deep pity for my captors. They are young men brainwashed by propaganda videos and plagued by so much illiteracy. It made me sad to see that those young people, for whose better future I had given my life, were wasting theirs for an ideal of death and violence”.
Prayer in the desert and international support
During his imprisonment, a cloth rosary and spontaneous prayer kept him spiritually connected to his mission and family:
“I learned to be a missionary with my heart, not with my feet. I prayed the prayer of the heart and walked with my heart along the paths I used to travel on foot or by car. I discovered, in that captivity, that praying is to counter the solitude of feeling abandoned by God”.
Fr Maccalli expressed deep gratitude to all who prayed for his freedom—parishes, monasteries, and individual believers—as well as the Holy See, which culminated in a private audience with Pope Francis on 9 November 2020. Addressing Christian communities in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Mozambique currently affected by jihadist attacks, he thanked them for their steadfast witness and encouraged them to remain faithful workers for peace.
