Ex-Hostage Priest to Take Post at USC Center

The Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, a former Beirut hostage who has lived in Portland since February, will move to Los Angeles in October to begin a new assignment.

The Roman Catholic Servite priest, who was a hostage in Lebanon for 19 months, will become part of the pastoral staff at the Newman Center, a student religious outreach center at USC.

Jenco, 53, has been living at The Grotto, a Marian shrine in northeast Portland.

Since his release in July, 1986, Jenco has spoken out unceasingly for the release of 18 other hostages, including nine Americans.

Time to Move On

Jenco said Friday that he and his fellow ex-hostages, Benjamin Weir and David Jacobsen, “had hoped they all would be out by now. But it’s time also to move on with our lives.”

He noted that Weir has returned to college teaching and Jacobsen recently became director of a Catholic hospital in Colorado. All, however, maintain a commitment to activism, the priest said.

Jenco said he was “a bit shocked” when his new provincial, the Rev. Ignatius Kissel, offered him the Los Angeles post, although the reassignment is considered routine.

After thinking it over, Jenco accepted the assignment, in part because he enjoys the challenges of working with college youth and in part because of the other challenges in Los Angeles.