ISABELA CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- A priest who spent his first Christmas after ordination with some 300 Catholics in the mountains returned late to his prelature's center due to fighting among Muslim clans along the way.

Bishop Martin Jumoad, who heads Isabela prelature, assigned Father Euclid Balos-balos to the mountain village of Mangal in Sumisip municipality.

For months, no priest had visited the village where some 300 Catholics live, more than 15 kilometers from the parish center along a route threatened by feuding Muslim clans, the bishop told UCA News on Jan. 3. His prelature covers the island-province of Basilan from its base in Isabela City, the provincial capital, 870 kilometers southeast of Manila.

Father Balos-balos, who was ordained in October, told UCA News on Jan. 7 that he was "happy" to go to a place where "people long for Christ." Mangal Catholics, he said, "had been asking the bishop for a long time to send a priest."

Mangal is part of Tumahubong parish, where the Abu Sayyaf group kidnapped Claretian Father Rhoel Gallardo with school officials and children in 2000. The priest and three other captives were killed before a military operation could rescue them.

Catholics have been gathering for "priestless" liturgies in their chapel and sending a kaabag (helper) to Tumahubong to bring back the Eucharist for distribution during the Bible services, Father Balos-balos said.

In addition to saying Mass, the young priest visited each family during his three weeks in the community to show the bishop's concern for the families.

He also ran a seminar to prepare children for Dec. 30 confirmations administered by Bishop Jumoad, since catechists from Tumahubong could not go to the village.

Isabela City is the only division in the province that did not vote to be included in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The prelature's 96,000 Catholics comprise 28 percent of the population. The majority of the people are Muslims. Mindanao, the name of both the main southern Philippine island, also applies to the southern region as a whole.

Father Balos-balos told UCA News Catholics and Muslims living on the "cold hills" of Mangal "live peacefully and work well together."

However, he said Philippine marines advised him to stay put on Jan. 2, when he attempted to leave for Isabela, because of a "disturbance" along the road.

"On Jan. 5, marines came and got me at 4 a.m. and brought me through the troubled area of Tipo-Tipo," a village in Maluso, the priest reported. He said marines told him a feud between members of the Tausug and Yakan tribes had made travel through the area "unsafe."

The priest said he was "not afraid" because his seminary formation with Comboni missioners included a four-year mission in Kenya, Africa.

"I told my bishop I would place myself in God's hands because, after all, God is already there waiting for me," he said. However, when asked about his upcoming assignment as parish priest outside of Isabela City, he said he was "too young to become a parish priest."

Bishop Jumoad told UCA News he assigned Father Balos-balos and another newly ordained priest, Father Joel Silagpo, both Basilan natives, to unsafe places during Christmas to "bring the Gospel to all people in Basilan" especially at that holy time.

The bishop said Father Silagpo expressed "concern" about his assignment to an area near Lantawan town and asked not to be sent there, because of the recent killing of a cooperative manager. The town was among places where police reported seizing illegal firearms in November, the week after former Basilan governor Wahab Akbar was killed in a bombing at the House of Representatives building in Quezon City, northeast of Manila.

"I told them (new priests) we have to cater to our people in all places even in risky ones, and we were not ordained to work in just 'safe havens,'" the bishop said.

On Jan. 8, Father Balos-balos began his assignment as parish priest in St. Teresa of Avila parish in Cabunbata, just outside of Isabela. Father Silagpo has been assigned to Santa Isabel Cathedral in Isabela.

Thirteen other diocesan priests, aided by seven Religious priests, minister in the prelature's eight parishes.

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