Word: priesting
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...frail, white-bearded priest was exhausted from his long ordeal and looked far older than his 51 years. But Father Lawrence Martin Jenco managed to perform the necessary rituals with distinction last week as he made his way homeward after 564 days of captivity in Lebanon. His journey took him from Syria to West Germany, then Rome, London and Washington, and finally Chicago and suburban Joliet, Ill. "Chicago is a windy city, and I want to feel that wind again," he declared soon after his arrival at the big U.S. air base at Rhein-Main in Frankfurt, West Germany...
Father Jenco's most joyous moment came on his second morning in West Germany, when he was reunited with eleven members of his family who had flown from the U.S. aboard an Air Force jet. When the priest entered the hospital room in which the group had gathered, his brother John later recalled, "we all sort of melted in our tracks. Then there was all this squeezing and crying." John's first words to his long-lost brother: "I love you, and please forgive me for anything that I have ever done wrong to you." As they talked, the priest...
...urgently sought the release of Jenco and the other hostages were among the first to telephone the priest in the Syrian capital of Damascus: Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. During his stopover there, Jenco also received a call from Vice President George Bush, who was in Frankfurt at the beginning of a ten-day trip to the Middle East. Bush had hoped to remain in West Germany for Jenco's arrival but in the end felt obliged to depart as scheduled for Israel...
...nervous and preoccupied with the horrors he had left behind. At one point he apologized to the press for refusing to answer some questions, explaining that his silence was "a shout of fear and concern" for "my brothers still held hostage." Honoring a promise to his former captors, the priest released a seven-minute videotape in which Jacobsen pleads with the Reagan Administration to work more actively on the hostages' behalf. Said Jacobsen: "I'm very tired and frustrated. I'm very angry. Why won't the Government negotiate for our release...
...messenger dropped off sealed envelopes at the offices of two West Beirut newspapers before he disappeared into the lawless night. The news: one of the American hostages in Lebanon, Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, 51, a Roman Catholic priest from Joliet, Ill., was about to be released by Islamic Jihad, the shadowy Shi'ite Muslim terrorist group that had abducted him in January 1985. His captors claimed that Jenco, who suffers from a heart condition, was being freed because of "deteriorating health" and released photos of the haggard priest in a red shirt. But their hostage seemed reasonably fit when found...