US hostages beginning to show strain as captivity tops 14 month period

THE CALM courage of the 52 American hostages in Iran has been movingly described byArchbishop Annibale Bugnini, the papal nuncio to Iran. In an interview with the Italian magazine Genre (People), the archbishop revealed full details of what had gone on during his meetings with the hostages over Christmas.
His account provided some fresh insights into the emotional state of the captives, who have now been held for more than 14 months, He said that the most emotional moment was when Kathryn Koob, the younger of the two women hostages, in her television message to her family began to sing a children's song that her mother used to sing to her.
"We all got goosebumps, even the students guarding us. I noticed one of the television technicians, also an Iranian. wiping the tears with his arm as he worked," the archbishop said, Altogether he met with 29 of the 52 hostages in small groups of no more than six at a time and celebrated a Christmas liturgy with them, He said that in one group, as they began singing a Christmas hymn after Communion, a tall young man who was Catholic stopped and said with tears in his eyes, "It really hurts me to sing in this situation. Even if this is Christmas, I don't have any desire to sing."
Everyone closed their hymn books, said the archbishop. and one of the Jewish hostages said, "You're right, We'll sing more Joyfully when we're on our way home.
Although the hostages he met seemed relaxed and in good health. the papal envoy said, that episode "showed their real state of mind."
He met only one of the two Jewish hostages being held. "When I embraced him and said, 'shalom', he was happy that I'd recognised him. He never left my side throughout the meeting. every so often he held my hand, as if looking for comfort from me."
The hostages include seven Catholics and 43 Protestants in addition to the Jews.
Archbishop Bugnini said that in their meetings with the small groups. Bishop Issaie celebrated Mass with .the first group and with subsequent groups they had a liturgy of the word followed by Communion. "Most of the Christians received Communion," he said. Recent Catholic guidelines allow non-Catholics who accept Christ's real presence in the Eucharist to share in the
Catholic Eucharist under certain extraordinary circumstances.
Archbishop Bugnini sharply dismissed the interviewer's suggestion that perhaps it had been undignified and humiliating for a papal ambassador to accept the Iranian students' conditions that the visitors be led blindfolded to their meeting site with the hostages.
"I'm a priest first, a diplomat second." he said. "The main goal was to bring a word of comfort to those unhappy people. Every thing else was secondary I would have gone in my underwear if they had required it," He noted that although he is the senior ambassador in Iran, he had renouncedahe role of dean of the diplomatic corps that goes with that position "precisely because I often make decisions by my instincts as a priest."