Fr. Steven Labat, young priest of the diocese of Paris, found dead in Sinai

The 32-year-old priest was hiking on Saturday, May 7, in the mountains of Sinai in Egypt when he most likely was the victim of a fatal fall.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Steven Labat, our Egyptian priest brother. Steven’s body was found by security forces in the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, where he was likely the victim of a fatal fall,” the Emmanuel Community said on its website on Monday, May 9.

He was supposed to return to Cairo on Friday evening, and after a missing persons report from his parish to the Egyptian police, they found the body of the 32-year-old priest on Saturday, May 7, in the mountains of Sinai in Egypt, where he had gone alone. He is thought to have fallen about 490 feet when he was a few yards from the top of Mount St. Catherine, just opposite Mount Sinai.