Another Priest turned to His ways.
Priest holds saint's statue ''hostage''
Thursday September 3 10:53 AM EDT
By Lorena Munoz
SAN PABLO, Colombia (Reuters) - Taking his lead from the country's booming kidnap industry, a Roman Catholic priest in this northern Colombian town is holding its patron saint ''hostage'' to raise money for the crumbling local church.
''It's not a real kidnapping, it's symbolic, so that people collaborate in the rebuilding of the church,'' Maurilio Bianchi, an Italian missionary, told Reuters in an interview Wednesday.
''I won't hand over San Pablo until they give me the money that's still needed,'' he said, referring to the revered statue of St. Paul that he removed from the church altar in late August and has refused to return.
''I'm very hard headed about this,'' Bianchi added. ''People have to make a commitment to their town and stop being so cheap.''
Residents of San Pablo have attributed various miracles and so-called ''favors,'' or benevolent acts of God, to the statue, which has stood in the town's church for at least 50 years.
But Bianchi said they would have to live without it until they come up with the equivalent of about $5,000, matching funds already raised in Europe for much-needed repairs to the San Pablo church.
At least one local resident, Humberto Marimon, said he sympathized with Bianchi, saying God must be on his side.
''That saint wouldn't have left the church if he didn't want to. He must have been tired of being there in a church that's falling down and that's why he helped the priest with the kidnapping,'' Marimon said.
''The roof is falling in, it has no bells or a cross, the floor is all broken up and it gets flooded when it rains,'' Marimon said of the long list of problems with the church.
''When it rains you get wetter inside than outdoors,'' he added. ''That's why San Pablo must have wanted another church where he could be more comfortable.''
Police in Colombia, which authorities say has one of the world's highest rate of abductions, reported a total of 1,822 kidnappings last year.
But police said the purloined statue in San Pablo was thought to be Colombia's first-ever kidnapping of a saint.
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