An angel of God intervenes to free Saint Peter from prison in this Sunday’s first reading. An appeals court has intervened to free a Sudanese woman who had been sentenced to death for apostasy after she married a Christian man and said she also was Christian. But after being released Monday Meriam Yehya Ibrahim was arrested again Tuesday at an airport as she and her family attempted to leave Sudan.

Ibrahim, her American husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children were stopped at an airport in Khartoum and then detained and interrogated at national security headquarters in the Sudanese capital, her legal team said. Ibrahim was charged with traveling on falsified documents and giving false information. The U.S. State Department said it is working with Sudan to ensure Ibrahim can leave the country.

The 27-year-old woman gave birth to her second child, a girl, in prison last month. The case caused outrage around the world, especially when it was revealed that Ibrahim had been forced to give birth with her legs shackled.

The proceedings began when one of Ibrahim's relatives, a Muslim, filed a criminal complaint saying her family was shocked to find out she had married Wani, a Christian, after she was missing for several years, according to her lawyer.

The court considered Ibrahim a Muslim because her father was Muslim, but she said she was a Christian and never practiced Islam. She was charged with adultery, because in Sudan a Muslim woman's marriage to a Christian man is illegal, and with apostasy, illegally renouncing what was alleged to be her original faith.

Ibrahim said that her mother, an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, raised her as a Christian and that her Sudanese Muslim father abandoned her when she was 6. "I am a Christian," she said during her sentencing hearing last month, "and I will remain a Christian."

Homily hint: Throughout history believers have made great sacrifices for their faith, even losing their lives rather than renounce their most deeply held beliefs. Treat your own faith as the precious gift it is, handed on to you and made possible by the sacrifice of many believers.

Sources: Articles by Nima Elbagir and Jason Hanna for CNN,
J. C. Finley for UPI, and Harriet Alexander for The Telegraph (UK)