Rome (AsiaNews) – Fr Giancarlo Bossi should be back in Italy on August 12. The missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) was freed on July 19 after 39 days in captivity in the southern Philippines. Together with Fr Gianbattista Zanchi, superior general of the Institute, he will visit the crisis unit at Italy’s Foreign Affairs Ministry for a press conference.

Father Zanchi, who is leaving for Manila and a four-day reflection and prayer meeting with the country’s PIME missionaries that had been scheduled before Father Bossi’s abduction, told AsiaNews himself about the August 12 press conference.

In the Philippines PIME missionaries will gather in the Institute’s Paranaque parish church in the capital. Here community celebrations for Father Bossi’s liberation will continue with a suitcase full of Italian food that Father Zanchi is bringing over, courtesy of the freed missionary’s brother.

Mgr Romulo Valles, archbishop of Zamboanga, and Fr Angelo Calvo, Claretian missionary who has closely followed Father Bossi’s kidnapping, will participate in the four-day meeting.

It was Father Calvo who first received the photos that confirmed that the kidnapped missionary was still alive.