FATHER Michael “Mick” Sinnott celebrated his 80th birthday last Dec. 17 in his hometown in Ireland, a day after Irish President Mary McAleese held a reception in his honor at the Irish leader’s residence in Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, Fr. Seán Coyle, editor of Misyon magazine, said in his blog.
Sinnott left for Ireland last Dec. 3, weeks away in freedom from his still unidentified armed kidnappers who snatched the cleric from his home in Pagadian City and held him captive for a month.
Sinnott left for Ireland last Dec. 3, weeks away in freedom from his still unidentified armed kidnappers who snatched the cleric from his home in Pagadian City and held him captive for a month.
Coyle wrote that McAleese has been close to the Columbans since childhood when the Irish official “used to sell our magazine, Far East.”
During the reception, McAleese praised the “quiet and modest work” of Irish religious missionaries and paid tribute to a member of the Kiltegan Fathers who was robbed inside his home in Kenya and brutally murdered last Dec. 11.
The Columban Fathers and the Kiltegan Fathers were both founded in Ireland and are societies of secular priests - not religious.
McAleese said some of the stories of 2009 had brought triumph in the face of adversity and Sinnott's was a glowing example of that, adding the story of the priest’s captivity “started out very badly; It did not start out a good story.”
“It was a very bad story, the kidnapping of a priest of almost 80 who was not in the full of his health. It had the potential to be a real tragedy, with at times it seemed, small chance of a happy ending,” the president said.
Yet, McAleese said, Sinnott had come home fresh and well and was with his family in the Áras just days before the celebration of his 80th birthday. “It really is a privilege for this house to welcome a man of such courage, faith and grace under fire,” she remarked.
The President explained it was ironic that Sinnott's kidnapping provided a chance to learn about the work which Irish priests “do so quietly and modestly” and that “wonderful work which brings huge benefit to the people [they] help and [it] also brings rightly high regard for the Columbans.”
“But it also brings, importantly, very high regard for Ireland. You are the hands of very important work and you are the heart of that work,” she added, recognizing likewise Ireland’s Ambassador, Dick O'Brien and everyone from the Irish, European and Philippine governments “who had worked so hard to secure Fr Sinnott's release.”
McAleese then wished Sinnott “the happiest of birthdays” while Coyle wrote a message to his fellow priest: “I thank him for his example, his integrity, his prayerfulness and his total dedication as a priest. I see in him a man who is truly 'configured to Christ'.”
“He is a light in these dark times for the Church in Ireland,” the priest added.
REPORT BY MICHAEL MEDINA