The mustard seed in global strategy - by Spengler - Magdi Cristiano Allam - Pope Benedict XVI

The mustard seed in global strategy - by Spengler - Magdi Cristiano Allam - Pope Benedict XVI

Monday, Mar. 24, 2008

A Muslim Critic Turns Catholic

By Jeff Israely

Egyptian-born Italian Journalist, Magdi Allam (L), who was a non-practicing Muslim, walks away after being baptized by Pope Benedict XVI

Egyptian-born Italian journalist Magdi Allam (L), who was a non-practicing Muslim, walks away after being baptized by Pope Benedict XVI during Easter Vigil mass in Saint Peter's Basilica March 22, 2008, in Vatican City.



Magdi Allam is Italy's answer to Ayaan Hirsan Ali, the Somalian-born Dutch writer and politician forced to live under police protection for her repeatedly stark public criticism of Islam. Like Hirsan Ali, the Egyptian-born Allam was raised in a Muslim family, before emigrating as a teenager to Europe, where he eventually became famous for railing against what he sees as fundamental flaws in his native religion. The Rome-based journalist has faced repeated death threats from Islamic radicals, and travels to speaking engagements in Italy and abroad with an armed security detail. Needless to say, neither Allam nor Hirsan Ali show signs of toning down their criticism.

A recurring topic of Allam's articles were cases of Muslims who were threatened with death for seeking to convert to Christianity. And now, Allam has himself become a Roman Catholic, converting in a baptism rite inside St. Peter's Basilica, a ceremony conducted by no less than Pope Benedict XVI. Allam has held a unique public role as the most prominent Muslim commentator — and critic of Islam — right in the Vatican's backyard. Church officials may be pleased that Allam has so publicly joined the Catholic flock, but he is unlikely to become any kind of mediator in the Vatican's attempts to start a dialogue with Islam.

That is because Allam is seen as almost belligerently anti-Islamic. After studying sociology at Rome's La Sapienza University, Allam began writing for the Italian daily La Repubblica, covering the first Gulf War and chronicling everyday life of the country's growing Muslim population. Initially, he wrote favorably about multiculturalism, and warned about the risks of racism against Muslims in this heavily Catholic nation. But after 9/11, now writing for another major newspaper, Corriere della Sera, he became an increasingly harsh critic of Islam, both inside and outside of Italy. He warned against the "Islamization" of Europe, and urged opposition to the building of new mosques in Italy. In his provocatively titled 2007 book Viva Israel: From the ideology of death to the civilization of life, my story, he described his transformation from hating Zionists as a youth to realizing "that hatred easily comes to include all Jews, then all Christians, then all liberal and secular Muslims, and at the end all Muslims who do not want to submit to Islamic radicals' will."

This and other writings have led to widespread criticism among Muslims in Italy, who say he depicts only the worst of Islamic faith and culture. Not surprisingly, Allam has won the admiration of some of Europe's prominent conservatives and critics of Muslim immigration. He has been compared to Hirsan Ali, herself an avowed atheist who long ago renounced her faith, and now divides her time between Europe and the United States. Allam also struck up a friendship with Oriana Fallaci, the late Italian journalist and writer, who in recent years wrote anti-Muslim screeds and warned against Europe becoming "Eurabia." Fallaci, a Catholic by birth, was a non-believer through her adult life, though reportedly was exploring questions of faith as she battled terminal cancer. In 2005, she met privately with Pope Benedict, but was still said to be an atheist when she died the following year.

Allam is the latest example of Benedict's attempts to re-engage contemporary European secular culture as well. The official Church line is that the decision for the Pope to perform the baptism himself was not extraordinary. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi emphasized that Allam was just one of seven adults baptized Saturday during an Easter vigil mass, saying that the Pope performed the rite "without making any 'difference of people,' that is, considering all equally important before the love of God and welcoming all in the community of the Church." Nonetheless, Allam's public conversion is another reminder that the Vatican is not shying away from the more prickly questions in its complicated relations with Islam. Benedict has made what he calls a "frank" public conversation with the Muslim world a high priority of his papacy, arguing that Islam should address the violent minority within its ranks by incorporating the theories of "natural law" the way Christianity did with the Western ideas of the Enlightenment.

While scores of top Muslim scholars have engaged the theologian Pope on this and other topics, some radical leaders see him as a prime nemesis. In an audio tape released last week, Osama bin Laden accused Benedict of playing a "large and lengthy role" in a "new Crusade" against Islam, which included the publication in Denmark of cartoons denigrating the prophet Muhammed. Father Lombardi dismissed the accusation, noting that Benedict repeatedly criticized the offensive cartoons.

The Holy See's diplomacy in the Muslim world stretches well beyond the Pope's words. High on the agenda is the Vatican push for the right to build Christian churches in Muslim-dominated countries. Officials in Rome have been heartened over the past two weeks with news of the first Catholic church opening in Doha, Qatar, and negotiations underway to potentially build one in Saudi Arabia. Still, Church officials say that the question of religious freedom must ultimately also mean freedom to change religion, and note that some Muslims insist that conversion from Islam is apostate, and punishable by death. In 2006, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert to Christianity, fled his native country after death threats and arrived in Rome, where he received political asylum from the Italian government and the support of the Pope.

Find this article at:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1725066,00.html



Reuters
Muslim baptised by pope says life in danger

Mon 24 Mar 2008, 8:39 GMT

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who was baptised a Catholic by Pope Benedict said on Sunday Islam is "physiologically violent" and he is now in great danger because of his conversion.

"I realise what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam.

In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptised the 55-year-old, Egyptian-born Allam at an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica that was broadcast around the world.

The conversion of Allam to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began.

Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual".

Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticised Iran's position on Israel.

He said before converting he had continually asked himself why someone who had struggled for what he called "moderate Islam" was then "condemned to death in the name of Islam and on the basis of a Koranic legitimisation".

His conversion, which he called "the happiest day of my life," came just two days after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam.

The Vatican appeared to be at pains to head off criticism from the Islamic world about the conversion.

"Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam," Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper.

Still, Allam's highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.

"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"

ANOTHER DEATH SENTENCE

Allam, the author of numerous books, said he realised that his conversion would likely procure him "another death sentence for apostasy," or the abandoning of one's faith.

But he said he was willing to risk it because he had "finally seen the light, thanks to divine grace".

Allam defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.

He said he made his decision to convert after years of deep soul searching and asserted that the Catholic Church has been "too prudent about conversions of Muslims".

At a Sunday morning Easter mass hours after he baptised Allam, the pope, without mentioning him, spoke in a prayer of the continuing "miracle" of conversion to Christianity some 2,000 years after Christ's resurrection.

The Vatican statement announcing Allam's conversion said: "For the Catholic Church, each person who asks to receive Baptism after a deep personal search, a fully free choice and adequate preparation, has a right to receive it."

It said all newcomers to the faith were "equally important before God's love and welcome in the community of the Church".

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.







Asia Time Online - Daily News

Front Page

Mar 26, 2008









The mustard seed in global strategy
By Spengler

A self-described revolution in world affairs has begun in the heart of one man. He is the Italian journalist and author Magdi Cristiano Allam, whom Pope Benedict XVI baptized during the Easter Vigil at St Peter's. Allam's renunciation of Islam as a religion of violence and his embrace of Christianity denotes the point at which the so-called global "war on terror" becomes a divergence of two irreconcilable modes of life: the Western way of faith supported by reason, against the Muslim world of fatalism and submission.

As Magdi Allam recounted , on his road to conversion the challenge that Pope Benedict XVI offered to Islam in his

September 2006 address at Regensburg was "undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert". Osama bin Laden recently accused Benedict of plotting a new crusade against Islam, and instead finds something far more threatening: faith the size of a mustard seed that can move mountains. Before Benedict's election, I summarized his position as "I have a mustard seed and I'm not afraid to use it." Now the mustard seed has earned pride of place in global affairs.

Magdi Allam tells us that he has found the true God and forsaken an Islam that he regards as inherently violent. Magdi Allam has a powerful voice as deputy editor of Italy's newspaper of record, Corriere della Sera, and a bestselling author. For years he was the exemplar of "moderate Islam" in Europe, and now he has decided that Islam cannot be "moderate".

Since September 2001, the would-be wizards of Western strategy have tried to conjure an "Islamic reformation", or a "moderate Islam", or "Islamic democracy". None of this matters now, for as Magdi Allam tells us, the matter on the agenda is not to persuade Muslims to act like liberal Westerners, but instead to convince them to cease to be Muslims. The use of the world "revolution" is Magdi Allam's:

His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

There is no deference to mutual respect and multi-culturalism. Magdi Allam forsook Islam because he considers it to be "inherently evil". As he wrote to his editor at the Corriere della Sera:

My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy ...

I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a "moderate Islam", assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Koran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive [emphasis added].

Far more important than denouncing the evils of Islam, though, is Magdi Allam's embrace of what he calls the God of faith and reason:

The miracle of the Resurrection of Christ has reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness of a tendency where hate and intolerance in before the "other", condemning it uncritically as an "enemy", and ascending to love and respect for one's "neighbor", who is always and in any case a person; thus my mind has been released from the obscurantism of an ideology which legitimates lying and dissimulation, the violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission and tyranny - permitting me to adhere to the authentic religion of Truth, of Life, and freedom. Upon my first Easter as a Christian I have not only discovered Jesus, but I have discovered for the first time the true and only God, which is the God of Faith and Reason ...

Magdi Allam presents an existential threat to Muslim life, whereas other prominent dissidents, for example Ayaan Hirsi Ali, offer only an annoyance. Much as I admire Hirsi Ali, she will persuade few Muslims to reconsider their religion. She came to the world's attention in 2004 after a Muslim terrorist murdered Theo van Gogh, with whom she had produced a brief film protesting the treatment of women under Islam. As an outspoken critic of Islam, Hirsi Ali has lived under constant threat, and I have deplored the failure of Western governments to accord her adequate protection.
Yet the spiritual emptiness of a libertine and cynic like Theo van Gogh can only repel Muslims. Muslims suffer from a stultifying spiritual emptiness, depicted most poignantly by the Syrian Arab poet Adonis (see Are the Arabs already extinct?, Asia Times Online, May 8, 2007). Muslim traditional society cannot withstand the depredations of globalized culture, and radical Islam arises from a despairing nostalgia for the disappearing past. Why would Muslims trade the spiritual vacuum of Islam for the spiritual sewer of Dutch hedonism? The souls of Muslims are in agony. The blandishments of the decadent West offer them nothing but shame and deracination. Magdi Allam agrees with his former co-religionists in repudiating the degraded culture of the modern West, and offers them something quite different: a religion founded upon love.

Only a few months ago it seemed fanciful to hail Benedict XVI as the leader of the West. I wrote late last year (The inside story of the Western mind, Asia Times Online, November 6, 2007):

The West is not fighting individual criminals, as the left insists; it is not fighting a Soviet-style state, as the Iraqi disaster makes clear; nor is it fighting a political movement. It is fighting a religion, specifically a religion that arose in enraged reaction to the West. None of the political leaders of the West, and few of the West's opinion leaders, comprehends this. We are left with the anomaly that the only effective leader of the West is a man wholly averse to war, a pope who took his name from the Benedict who interceded for peace during World War I. Benedict XVI, alone among the leaders of the Christian world, challenges Islam as a religion, as he did in his September 2006 Regensburg address.

One does not fight a religion with guns (at least not only with guns) but with love, although sometimes it is sadly necessary to love one's enemies only after they are dead. The Church has lacked both the will to evangelize Muslims as well as the missionaries to undertake the task. Benedict XVI, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, has thought about the conversion of the Muslims for years, as I reported just before his election in 2005 (The crescent and the conclave, Asia Times Online, April 19, 2005). Where will the Pope find the sandals on the ground in this new religious war? From the ranks of the Muslims themselves, evidently. Magdi Allam is just one convert, but he has a big voice. If the Church fights for the safety of converts, they will emerge from the nooks and crannies of Muslim communities in Europe.

The Pope also has in reserve the European youth movement "Communione e Liberazione", which he has nurtured for decades. Forty-thousand members turned out in 2005 when the then Cardinal Ratzinger addressed a memorial service in Milan for the movement's founder. European Christianity may be reduced to a few coals glowing in the ashes, but it is not dead, only marginalized. If the Catholic youth of Europe are offered a great task - to evangelize the Muslims whose restlessness threatens to push Europe into social chaos - many of them may heed the call.

As I wrote in 2005, "Now that everyone is talking about Europe's demographic death, it is time to point out that there exists a way out: convert European Muslims to Christianity." Today's Europeans stem from the melting-pot of the barbarian invasions that replaced the vanishing population of the Roman Empire. The genius of the Catholic Church was to absorb them. If Benedict XVI can convert this new wave of invaders from North Africa and the Middle East, history will place him on a par with his great namesake, the founder of the monastic order the bears his name.

As Magdi Allam enjoins his new Church:

For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those "fortuitous events" that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on September 3, 2003, was entitled "The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts". It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope's historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves.

What the outcome will be of the evangelization of Muslims lies beyond all speculation: that is a matter of every soul's relationship to God. But the global agenda has changed, not through the machinations of statesmen or the word-mincing of public intellectuals, but through the soul of a single man. Benedict's Regensburg challenge to Islam now demarcates the encounter between the West and the Muslim world, and nothing will be the same.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)











latimes.com Opinion LA blog

Not-so-simple conversion

According to Roman Catholic doctrine, a baptism is valid even if it is performed by a layperson and even if it takes place in private. My sainted mother remembered that when she administered a "kitchen baptism" (head under the spigot) to a grandson she wasn't sure would be dipped by his parents.

So why did Pope Benedict XVI have to baptize Magdi Allam, a journalist from a Muslim background, not just in public but at a televised Easter Vigil service at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome? Was the pope offensively flaunting a prized conversion and giving credence to Osama bin Laden's taunt that Benedict was playing a "large and lengthy role" in a "new Crusade" against Islam? Was this an another affont, intended or not, from a pope who raised Muslim hackles in 2006 when, during a lecture in Germany, he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who accused the Prophet Muhammad of commanding that Islam be "spread by the sword"?

I don't think so. First, Allam was one of seven people received into the fold by Benedict, Second, the baptism of new Christians is an Easter Vigil tradition. In 2005, the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, baptized five new Christians at the vigil, filling in for the ailing Pope John Paul II. Third, even if Allam was chosen because of his prominence, there is nothing new about Christians (or adherents of other faiths) trumpeting the admission of a high-profile convert. Certainly Buddhists take pride in the fact that Richard Gere is one of them. Fourth and most important, Allam's conspicuous conversion was a matter of his own choice, a choice the Roman Catholic Church would have been bound by a decree of the Second Vatican Council to respect even if he had decided to become a devout Muslim.

It wasn't always thus. You don't have to be Osama bin Laden to recognize that Christianity also has been "spread by the sword" or that in the past the Vatican operated on the assumption that "error has no rights." And Allam's voluntary conversion contrasts dramatically with the 19th century case of the kidnapping and Christianization of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy from Bologna who was seized from his parents by papal police after the local Inquisition discovered that he had been baptized as an infant by a Christian servant girl. Pope Pius IX (whose humongous miter Benedict recently wore) rejected appeals that the boy be returned to his family. Edgardo later was ordained a Catholic priest. (The Catholic League on its website offers a tortured defense of Pio Nono's conduct in this case.)

Intolerance is an occupational hazard for believers of all kinds. But the Catholic Church of which Allam is now a member eventually joined other Christian bodies in recognizing that belief cannot be compelled and that, in the words of Vatican II, "the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature." It's too much to hope that Osama bin Laden will accept this teaching, but other Muslims do. An increase in their numbers is the best insurance against the "clash of civilzations" between Christians and Muslims.

Posted by Michael McGough on March 25, 2008









The Associated Press
Muslim Scholar Denounces Vatican Baptism

By FRANCES D'EMILIO – 5 hours ago

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Muslim scholar who participated in recent Vatican talks to improve Catholic-Muslim relations criticized Pope Benedict XVI's Easter baptism of a prominent convert from Islam as a "provocative" act.

Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born TV and newspaper commentator who has denounced Islam as inherently violently, was baptized by the pope in a vigil service Saturday night in St. Peter's Basilica.

Aref Ali Nayed, director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan, criticized what he called "the Vatican's deliberate and provocative act of baptizing Allam on such a special occasion and in such a spectacular way."

"It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points," Nayed said in a written statement.

He added that the baptism came "at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities."

Earlier this month, Nayed participated in two days of talks at the Vatican to prepare for an audience in November between the pope and Muslim religious leaders and scholars. Benedict's top official on interreligious dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, was among the participants.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano denied that the baptism had been played up, saying it was kept secret until just before the ceremony. It described the baptism as a papal "gesture" to stress "in a gentle and clear way, religious freedom."

"There are no hostile intentions toward a great religion like that of Islam," the newspaper wrote.

The Vatican has been eager to mend relations with moderate Islam and has placed a great deal of importance on the upcoming audience with representatives of 138 Muslim scholars who wrote to the pope last year calling for greater Muslim-Christian dialogue.

Their call came after Benedict gave a speech in 2006 citing a medieval emperor's words about Islam and violence. Benedict later expressed regret that the speech angered many in the Muslim world.

Nayed said work to improve relations would continue despite the "unfortunate episode" of Allam's baptism.

Allam, a deputy editor of Milan daily Corriere della Sera, has built his career as commentator and book author attacking Islamic extremism and supporting Israel.

In a Sunday piece for Corriere della Sera, he said the "root of the evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual."

On Tuesday, Ugo Intini, Italy's deputy foreign minister for Middle East affairs, criticized Allam's "very harsh condemnation" of Islam.

In an unusual appeal in a country where the government is highly respectful of the Holy See, Intini called on the Vatican, "after the emphasis given to Allam's conversion, to distance itself clearly from his statements."







March 25, 2008, 6:00 a.m.

Allam & Allah
A war of ideas.

An NRO Q&A

At Easter Vigil Mass this weekend, Pope Benedict baptized Egyptian-born Italian journalist, Magdi Allam, now a former Muslim. The conversion was an attention-grabber for obvious reasons. National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez took the news as an excuse for a quick check-in with George Weigel, biographer of the previous pope, and author, most recently, of Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action.


Kathryn Jean Lopez: What’s the most important message about the war we’re in coming out of Magdi Allam’s conversion from Islam to Catholicism?

George Weigel: The war against jihadism is, among many other things, a war in defense of religious freedom, the first of human rights. That war is, at bottom, a war of ideas — of different ideas about the human person and different ideas of human obligation. Magdi Allam has courageously defended the religious freedom of all while sharply criticizing those currents of thought in Islam which would deny the right of religious conversion to Muslims. Now he fights the war of ideas from a different foxhole, so to speak.

Lopez: Who, among Muslims, should be held up as to encourage those who want to fight jihadism?

Weigel: The kind of Muslims who will be our most effective allies in the war against jihadism are those Muslims who want to make an Islamic case for tolerance, civility, and pluralism. The temptation to think that the answer to the problem of jihadism is the conversion of 1.2 billion Muslims to Western liberal secularism ought to be stoutly resisted as the ivy-league fantasy it is. The question is whether, and how, Islam can effect what Christian theology would call a “development of doctrine” on issues like religious freedom and the separation of religious and political authority in a just state. A lot of 21st-century history is riding on the answer to that question.


Lopez: Should we be worried about riots in the streets of Rome given his prominent baptism by the pope?

Weigel: During a recent work period in Rome I was regularly reminded that the normal patterns of Roman street life could well be classified as riotous, at least by other cultural standards.

Seriously, though, I would hope that the Italian authorities would take firm steps to ensure that a man’s act of conscience in a religious matter, freely undertaken, should not become the occasion for civil disturbances.


Lopez: Is Islam the enemy? Or just Osama bin Laden’s version of Islam?

Weigel: Bin Laden’s Islam is the enemy of those Muslims who do not share bin Laden’s conception of what Islam requires, as well as the enemy of the rest of us.


Lopez: Has Pope Benedict been an important voice in this war? Is he being listened to?

Weigel: I think Benedict’s Regensburg lecture of September 2006 was the most important papal statement on a public question of global consequence since John Paul II’s 1995 U.N. address in defense of the universality of human rights. As I put it in my small book, Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism, the Regensburg Lecture identified the linked problems at the center of a lot of turbulence in world politics today: the detachment of faith from reason (as in jihadism) and the loss of faith in reason (as in much of western Europe and too much of American high culture). The former leads to the notion that God can and does command the irrational, such as the killing of innocents; the latter leaves the West intellectually disarmed in the face of the jihadist challenge. At Regensburg, the pope also gave a pluralistic world a vocabulary with which to deal with these grave problems: the vocabulary of rationality and irrationality. Whether these issues are understand in the world’s chancelleries and foreign ministries in the terms in which the Holy Father understands them is another question altogether.


Lopez: Is there a message about the war you expect he’ll be bringing with him to the U.S. next month?

Weigel: I wouldn’t be surprised if the pope spoke at the U.N. about the natural moral law — the moral truths we can know by reason — as a kind of global “grammar” by which the world can rationally discuss the world’s future. And that has everything to do with the war against jihadism.


Lopez: Do we deserve to win if we wind up electing Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama president?

Weigel: Whether we deserve to win or not, we’re much less likely to win with a president who manifestly does not understand the nature of the enemy or the multifront struggle in which we are necessarily engaged. A return to the Nineties — to foreign-policy-as-therapy — is not going to see us, or the Magdi Allams of this world, through to a future safe for the exercise of religious freedom.









washingtonpost.com

Muslim's conversion conflict hits Vatican on Easter

By Philip Pullella
Reuters
Sunday, March 23, 2008; 1:27 PM

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called in his Easter message on Sunday for an end to injustice worldwide and expressed joy at continuing conversions to Christianity hours after he baptized a prominent Italian Muslim convert.

The pope celebrated an Easter Mass for tens of thousands of people in driving rain in St Peter's Square as Christians around the world commemorated Christ's resurrection.

The wind and rain that has whipped most of Europe did not spare Rome as the German pontiff, wearing white and gold vestments, said Mass while the crowd huddled under umbrellas.

The mass came some 12 hours after an Easter vigil service on Saturday night where, in a surprise move, the pope baptized Muslim-born convert Magdi Allam, 55, an outspoken journalist and fierce critic of Islamic extremism.

At the morning Mass, the pope read a prayer saying that after Christ's resurrection some 2,000 years ago "thousands and thousands of people converted to the Christian faith" and he added: "This is a miracle that still renews itself today."

The Egyptian-born Allam's conversion to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before the Saturday night service began.

Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticized Iran's position on Israel.

Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said he realized that he was in greater danger but he has no regrets.

"INNATE EVIL"

Allam wrote: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual."

His conversion, which he called "the happiest day of my life," came just two days after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam.

The Vatican appeared to be at pains to head off criticism from the Islamic world about the conversion of Allam, who defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.

"Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam," Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper.

Still, Allam's highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.

"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"

In his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message delivered after the Mass, the pope decried "the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day."

"These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed; wounds that

torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters," he said.

He called for "an active commitment to justice ... in areas bloodied by conflict and wherever the dignity of the human person continues to be scorned and trampled," mentioning Darfur, Somalia, the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon and Tibet.

He then wished the world a happy Easter in 63 languages.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mary Gabriel)

© 2008 Reuters







Times Online

From Times Online

March 25, 2008
Saudi king calls for interfaith talks

Richard Owen of The Times in Rome

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Islam's most holy shrines and adheres to a hardline Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam, has for the first time announced plans to launch a dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

"I want to call for conferences between the religions to protect humanity from folly," he told a forum in Riyadh. He referred to his ground breaking talks in Rome last November with Pope Benedict XVI, saying "I wanted to visit the Vatican and I did, and I thank him. He met me in a meeting I will not forget, a meeting of one human being with another. I suggested this idea".

"If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel to come up with ways to safeguard humanity," he added. The king, who is the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, said the major faiths shared a desire to combat "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world".

According to the official Saudi Press Agency King Abdullah said "I have noticed that the family system has weakened and that atheism has increased. That is an unacceptable behavior to all religions, to the Koran, the Torah and the Bible. We ask God to save humanity. There is a lack of ethics, loyalty and sincerity for our religions and humanity."

He said he had secured support of Saudi clerics, but did not name them. The Saudi king's move came as members of a new Catholic Muslim Forum set up by the Vatican and Islamic leaders deplored Pope Benedict's Easter baptism of an Egyptian-born Italian Muslim as "provocative and triumphalist."

Aref Ali Nayed, director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman and a leading figure in a group of 138 Muslim scholars who helped to launch the Forum, called on the Pope to distance himself from an attack on Islam by Magdi Allam in Corriere della Sera, of which he is a deputy editor, describing it as an inherently violent faith which encouraged hate and intolerance.

The Forum, which is to hold its first meeting in Rome in November, arose in the aftermath of the Popes remarks at Regensburg University in Germany in 2006 in which appeared to characterise Islam as evil, inhumane and irrational. After the Pope made clear he had been misunderstood 138 Muslim scholars - whose numbers have since risen to over 200 - then wrote an open letter to him entitled "The Common Word" offering a dialogue.

Nayed, head of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, said other Muslim members of the new Forum agreed with him, but stopped short of suggesting that the new Catholic-Muslim dialogue had been derailed by the baptism. He said Allam's conversion was his personal decision and had no doubt been influenced by the journalist's 35 year stay in Italy and his earlier education at a Salesian Catholic school in Egypt.

But he found it "sad that the particular person chosen for such a highly public gesture has a history of generating, and continues to generate, hateful discourse." Arab newspapers also deplored the baptism, with the Saudi daily al-Watan described Allam as a pro Israeli writer who had "worked tirelessly to attack Islam".

Several Arab papers said the conversion would not have attracted such attention if it had been less high profile. Nayed said the Pope's involvement made it look as if the Vatican was "scoring points", provoking "genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the Pope's advisers on Islam".

He added: "But we will not let this unfortunate episode distract us from our work on pursuing 'A Common Word' for the sake of humanity and world peace. Our basis for dialogue is not a tit-for-tat logic of reciprocity."

L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said the baptism of Allam did not imply any hostility toward Islam, since "religious freedom includes the freedom to change one's religion".

Allam, who has been an Italian citizen since 1986, says he has never been a practising Muslim. He said about his most recent book is "Viva Israel", "I discovered that at the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is discrimination against Israel." His previous books include "Kamikaze made in Europe: Will the West defeat Islamic terrorists?".

In Corriere della Sera on Sunday he said he had concluded that "beyond the phenomenon of the extremists and of Islamic terrorism on a worldwide level, the root of the evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual." His conversion had freed him from a faith marked by "hate and intolerance toward he who is different, toward he who is condemned as an enemy".

In television interviews he said he was aware that death threats against him, which have forced him to have police protection since 2003, could now increase. But he said Pope Benedict "wanted to give a signal to the Church throughout the world" that whoever wanted to join it would be accepted.

Allam recently attacked Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over his remarks on the application of Sharia law in the United Kingdom. "This is the degenerate product of the multicultural ideology" he said. "These declarations are the proof that an insidious process, the Islamisation of European society, is already well under way".

King Abdullah's announcement follows reports that the Vatican is holding exploratory talks with Riyadh aimed at obtaining permission to build the first church in Saudi Arabia, following the inauguration of Qatar's first Christian church. Only Islam is permitted in Saudi Arabia, but the number of Catholic foreign workers resident in the country has risen to nearly a million.









Times Online

From The Times

March 24, 2008
Pope converts outspoken Muslim who condemned ‘religion of hate’

Magdi Allam, who converted to Catholicism from Islam, is baptised by Pope Benedict XV

(Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty)

Magdi Allam is baptised by Pope Benedict XVI

Richard Owen in Rome



Italian journalist Magdi Allam

(Luca Bruno/AP)

The Muslim-born deputy editor of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera had described Islam as a religion characterised by hate and intolerance

Richard Owen in Rome



The Pope has risked a renewed rift with the Islamic world by baptising a Muslim journalist who describes Islam as intrinsically violent and characterised by “hate and intolerance”.

In a surprise move at the Easter vigil at St Peter’s, Pope Benedict XVI baptised Magdi Allam, 55, an outspoken Egyptian-born critic of Islamic extremism and supporter of Israel. He has been under police protection for five years after receiving death threats over his criticism of suicide-bombings.

Religious freedom has been the theme of this year’s Easter celebrations. The meditations for the Good Friday Via Crucis procession at the Colosseum were written by Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, who drew attention to the suffering of persecuted Christian “martyrs” around the world.

Mr Allam’s conversion was kept secret until less than an hour before the service on Saturday evening. He took the middle name “Christian” for his baptism.

The move revived memories of the fury that greeted Pope Benedict’s speech at Regensburg University in 2006 in which he appeared to brand Islam as inherently violent by quoting a Byzantine emperor.

He had since sought to make amends, praying in a mosque in Turkey and establishing a forum for Roman Catholic-Muslim dialogue to be inaugurated in November. His talks last November with King Abdullah in Rome have led to talks on opening a church in Saudi Arabia, where all non-Islamic faiths are banned.

In an article for Corriere della Sera, the Italian newspaper of which he is a deputy editor, Mr Allam, who has lived in Italy most of his adult life and has a Catholic wife, said that his soul had been “liberated from the obscurantism of an ideology which legitimises lies and dissimulation, violent death, which induces both murder and suicide, and blind submission to tyranny”. Instead he had “seen the light” and joined “the authentic religion of Truth, Life and Liberty”.

He added: “I had to do this. Beyond extremists and Islamist terrorism at the global level, the root of evil is inherent in a physiologically violent and historically conflictual Islam.” Mr Allam, who was educated at a Salesian Catholic school and previously described himself as a “not very devout” Muslim, was one of seven adults baptised during the Easter vigil, traditionally used for adult conversion ceremonies.

He said that by baptising him publicly the Pope had “sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too cautious in the conversion of Muslims”. He added: “Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practise their faith serenely. But there are also thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity but are forced to hide out of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists.”

Last week the Vatican dismissed as “baseless” a charge by Osama bin Laden that the Pope was playing a leading role in a “new Crusade” against Islam. Muslim groups in Italy said that Mr Allam would have done better with a low-key conversion at a local parish.Yesterday the Pope celebrated Easter Mass from under a canopy in torrential rain on St Peter’s Square, calling for an end to “injustice, hatred and violence”. He also called for “solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good” in Tibet, the Middle East and African regions.





Times Online

From Times Online

March 18, 2008
Analysis: Saudi Arabia and the Vatican

Richard Owen of The Times in Rome

News that the Vatican is in behind the scenes contacts with the Saudi authorities over opening a Roman Catholic church in Saudi Arabia follows a series of hints from senior Catholic prelates involved with the Middle East following last November's ground breaking encounter in Rome between Pope Benedict XVI and King Abdullah.

Not by chance, the disclosure came just after the first Catholic church in Qatar, Our Lady of the Rosary, was inaugurated at a mass in the seaside capital of Doha attended by 15,000 people and held by Cardinal Ivan Dias, head of the Congregation for Evangelisation, who presented a chalice sent by Pope Benedict XVI.

Officially the Vatican is being cautious, downplaying expectations.The Vatican and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, and Saudi Arabia does not allow religious freedom, with Christian worship in effect forbidden.

However Archbishop Mounged El Hachem, the papal nuncio to Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen and Bahrain, who attended the Doha inauguration, said moves toward diplomatic ties were under way following the unprecedented visit to the Vatican last November by King Abdullah.

This would involve negotiations for the "authorisation of the building of Catholic churches" in Saudi Arabia, he said. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said he could not confirm that the two sides were "in negotiations" but added: "If, as we hope, we reach an agreement authorising the construction of the first church in Saudi Arabia, it will be a step of historic importance."

The way was paved not only by King Abdullah's talks with the Pope but also more recently by the setting up of a permanent Catholic-Muslim Forum to repair relations between the two faiths after the Pope's controversial remarks on Islam at Regensburg University in 2006.

The Pope said his apparent reference to Islam as inherently violent and inhumane had been "misunderstood," and he made amends by praying at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul shortly afterwards. He has called however for "reciprocal" gestures by the Muslim side, such as greater tolerance for Christian minorities in Muslim countries.

Vatican Radio said the opening of the church in Qatar was "an event of historical importance after 14 centuries". The church, which bears no crosses or bells, stands on land donated to the Church by Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who favours interreligious dialogue.

The Vatican however warned Christians in the Gulf to be "prudent", and said there was an increased threat of attacks by Islamic extremists on local Christian communities.

Bishop Paul Hinder, Apostolic Vicar for Arabia, says "the climate" in Saudi Arabia has "improved" since last year's visit by King Abdullah to the Vatican - the first ever audience by the head of the Roman Catholic Church with a Saudi monarch.

At the time the two leaders called for "religious and cultural dialogue among Christians, Muslims and Jews for the promotion of peace, justice and spiritual and moral values, especially in support of the family."

Bishop Hinder, a Swiss Capuchin, said "the situation of the Church in Saudi Arabia is similar to that of early Christian communities. It is a Church that prays, that hopes one day to come out of the catacombs".

Most of the Christians in Saudi Arabia - thought to be around a million - are foreign workers from countries like India and the Philippines. Bishop Hinder said al-Qaeda terrorists had targeted foreign workers "to create insecurity and push foreign companies to leave".

But the Saudis knew "that without such human capital the House of Saud could not survive. Many local civil and religious leaders who are in favour of greater dialogue are afraid to speak publicly about it. And yet there is no alternative to dialogue and mutual tolerance."

Bishop Hinder told al Jazeera that allowing Christians to worship freely could "only bring benefits to the countries in which they are working. The more they are satisfied spiritually, the more they will continue to help develop the country - it's obvious," he said.

Qatar, which hopes to bid to host the Olympic Games in 2016, has approved five churches for other Christian denominations, including the Anglican Communion. The first Catholic church in the Gulf was opened in Bahrain.There are seven Catholic churches in the United Arab Emirates, four in Oman and three in Kuwait.

The new Muslim-Catholic Forum will be inaugurated in Rome in November with a seminar on the theme "Love God, Love Thy Neighbour." It will hold regular meetings, and will also "convene at any time if emergency global circumstances arise similar to the mass unrest and protests caused by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006", Vatican and Muslim officials said.

The opening of the church in Qatar leaves Saudi Arabia as the only country in the region that still bans the building of churches. Will it now reverse this? One major obstacle is that such a concession could risk a violent backlash by Muslims who regard Saudi Arabia as sacred territory because it is home to Islam's holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.

The Saudi authorities adhere to the austere Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam, ruthlessly banning all non-Muslim religious rituals and confiscate Bibles and crucifixes. And no-one is more aware of the sensitivities involved than King Abdullah, who is the guardian of the Islamic holy sites - and of Saudi Arabia's stability.





Times Online

From The Times

November 16, 2007
Vatican joins historic talks to end 950-year rift with Orthodox church

Pope Benedict XVI

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent and Paul Bompard in Rome

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches took tentative steps towards healing their 950-year rift yesterday by drafting a joint document that acknowledges the primacy of the Pope.

The 46-paragraph “Ravenna Document”, written by a special commission of Catholic and Orthodox officials, envisages a reunified church in which the Pope could be the most senior patriarch among the various Orthodox churches.

Just as Pope John Paul II was driven by the desire to bring down Communism, so Pope Benedict XVI hopes passionately to see the restoration of a unified Church. Although he is understood to favour closer relations with traditional Anglicans, the Anglican Communion is unlikely to be party to the discussions because of its ordination of women and other liberal practices.

Unification with the Orthodox churches could ultimately limit the authority of the Pope, lessening the absolute power that he currently enjoys within Catholicism. In contrast, a deal would greatly strengthen the Patriarch of Constantinople in his dealings with the Muslim world and the other Orthodox churches.

Pope Benedict has called a meeting of cardinals from all over the world in Rome on November 23, when the document will be the main topic of discussion. The Ravenna “road map” concedes that “elements of the true Church are present outside the Catholic communion”.

It suggests that means “be sought out” to set up a new ecumenical council, similar to those of the early Church which drew up the Nicene and other creeds, and to which Catholic and Orthodox bishops would be invited. Such a council would attempt formally to end the schism of 1054 between East and West.

If the proposals move forward, the Pope would be acknowledged as the universal Primate, as he was before the schism. Although it is not stated outright, he would be expected by the Orthodox churches to relinquish the doctrine of infallibility. The proposals could also allow married priests in the Catholic Church, as already happens in the Orthodox.

However, continuing disputes within the Orthodox Church between Constantinople and Moscow mean that there is unlikely to be agreement among the entire Orthodox community about reconciliation with Rome.

The document, The Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church, has been produced by a commission of Orthodox and Catholic bishops and theologians that met in Ravenna in western Italy last month. The Russian delegate walked out of the meeting, an indication of the enduring disputes within the Orthodox Church.

Referring to the early councils of the Church, whose decisions are still central to doctrine throughout Christendom, the document adds: “In the course of history, when serious problems arose affecting the universal communion and concord between Churches – in regard either to the authentic interpretation of the faith, or to ministries and their relationship to the whole Church, or to the common discipline which fidelity to the Gospel requires – recourse was made to Ecumenical Councils.” These councils, which assembled bishops from Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, are still regarded as binding by Catholics and the Orthodox in particular. “The means which will allow the reestablishment of ecumenical consensus must be sought out,” the document states.

The Catholics at the Ravenna meeting were led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The Orthodox were headed by Metropolitan Zizioulas, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

A delegate from Moscow blamed Constantinople for upsetting the talks, and the final text published by the Vatican was agreed without the input of the Moscow Patriarchate. After Rome and Constantinople, Moscow is agreed to be third in the hierarchy of “equals”, but it is still at odds with Rome over the Uniate Catholics in Ukraine, whose loyalty is to the Pope.

If the Orthodox were able to move closer to Rome, the Constantinople Patriarchate would have much stronger influence in its dialogue with the Muslim world in Turkey and beyond. Healing the schism would in effect turn Patriarch Bartholomew into an Orthodox “Pope”.

The document suggests that the Pope, always referred to in the text as “Bishop of Rome”, could be the “first” among the regional patriarchs. But this would be only as a primus inter pares, with his authority resting firmly on the support and consensus of the other patriarchs. “Certainly Rome could not be the absolute centre of administration, with authority over all the others,” Greek Metropolitan Athanasios Chatzopoulos, one of the participants of the Ravenna conference, said. “The ‘primus’ would not be able to do anything without the consent of the other Patriarchs.”

The great divide

- On July 16, 1054, Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarch, Cerularius, soon reciprocated, excommunicating the Pope

- Christianity has since been split in two, largely because of three words: The Nicene Creed of the Roman Church says that the Holy Ghost “proceeds from the Father and the Son”; the Orthodox Church claims the Holy Ghost originates with the Father alone.

- This “Filioque clause” was the official reason for the Great Schism, but other disputes would now need to be clarified before the churches could unite

Sources: Catholic Encyclopedia, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Britannica, Orthodox Research Institute







Times Online

From The Times

March 17, 2008
Saudi Arabia extends hand of friendship to Pope

Richard Owen in Rome

The Vatican is believed to be holding talks with Saudi authorities over opening the first Roman Catholic church in the Islamic kingdom, where Christian worship is banned and even to possess a Bible, rosary or crucifix is an offence.

The disclosure came the day after the first Catholic church in Qatar was inaugurated in a service attended by 15,000 people and conducted by a senior Vatican official.

The Vatican and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations. However, Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hachem, the Papal Nuncio to Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen and Bahrain, who attended the Doha inauguration, said that moves towards diplomatic ties were under way after an unprecedented visit to the Vatican last November by King Abdullah. This would involve negotiations for the “authorisation of the building of Catholic churches” in Saudi Arabia, he said.

The move would amount to a potential revolution in Christian-Muslim relations, since Saudi Arabia adheres to a hardline Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam and is home to Mecca and Medina, the most holy sites of the religion. No faith other than Islam may be practised.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that he could not confirm that the two sides were in negotiations. However, he added: “If, as we hope, we reach an agreement authorising the construction of the first church in Saudi Arabia, it will be a step of historic importance.”

Saudi religious police search the homes of Christians regularly; even private prayer services are forbidden in practice. Foreign workers have to observe Ramadan but are not allowed to celebrate Christmas or Easter.

La Stampa, the Italian daily, said that the talks would have been “unthinkable” until recently. The way was paved by King Abdullah's talks with the Pope and by the recent setting up of a permanent Catholic-Muslim forum to repair relations between the two faiths after the Pope's controversial remarks on Islam at the University of Regensburg in 2006.

The Pope said that his apparent reference to Islam as inherently violent had been misunderstood and he made amends by praying at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul soon afterwards.

Of the Saudi Arabian population, 94 per cent are Muslim and less than 4 per cent - nearly a million people - Christian, nearly all of them foreign workers. The last Christian priest was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1985.

Qtar, which hopes to bid to host the Olympic Games in 2016, has approved five churches for other Christian denominations, including the Anglican Communion.

Land of one faith

— Saudi laws do not recognise or protect freedom of religion. Non- nationals are severely restricted in practising different faiths

— Missionaries are banned and face imprisonment if caught. Sunni Muslims face severe repercussions from the Mutawwain, or religious police, for breaking Muslim law

— The official policy of allowing non-Muslims to worship freely at home is not reliably enforced

— In the courts, once fault is determined, a Muslim receives all of the amount of compensation determined, a Jew or Christian half, and all others a sixteenth

Sources: US State Department; Conference of Catholic Bishops







Thousands of Muslims Convert to Christ
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (03/25/08)


Italian editor and critic of Islamic extremism Magdi Allam was baptized a Christian and took on the name “Christian” this Easter.

He was brought up a Muslim in Egypt. Now he praises Christianity as the faith of “Truth, Life and Freedom” which equates to Jesus proclaiming Himself as “The Way, The Truth and The Life.”

Allam states that there are “thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out of fear of being killed by Isalmist terrorists.” Allam himself is under police protection because he is ongoingly outspoken concerning the Muslim threat and the hope in Christ.

"I had to do this (abandon Islam)", Allam wrote in a long letter to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera per “Islam intrinsically violent – convert” in heraldsun.com.au.

It is interesting to note this man’s orthodox Christian newfound faith broadcast worldwide while segments of Christendom are abandoning biblical Christianity for apostasy by endorsing killing womb infants and homosexual recreational sex.

Allam’s conversion from the Islamic cult to Christ once again reminds genuine believers of the righteous remnant in the End Times, the latter the “lights of the world” promised by Christ.



Email: J. Grant Swank Jr.


Graduate of accredited college (BA) and seminary (M Div) with graduate work at Harvard Divinity School. Married for 44 years with 3 adult children. Author of 5 books and thousands of articles in various Protestant and Catholic magazines, journals, web sites, and newspapers. Writer of weekly religion column for PORTLAND PRESS HERALD newspaper, Portland ME.



















Muslim journalist's conversion stuns Europe, Islamic world

Rome, Mar. 25, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The conversion of a prominent Egyptian-born journalist, who was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) at the Easter Vigil, has stirred strong reactions across the Islamic world.

Magdi Allam, a deputy editor of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, said that his reception into the Catholic Church marked "the most beautiful day of my life." But his embrace of the Catholic faith outraged many Muslim leaders. Islam teaches that apostasy is punishable by death.

Allam had already been a target of Muslim anger because of his outspoken criticism of Islamic extremism. He lived in seclusion in Italy, accompanied by bodyguards during his public appearances, even before his conversion.

"I know what I am facing," Allam said after his Easter baptism. Recognizing that he was taking personal risks, he said, that he did so "with the certainty of faith." He added that he drew strength and courage from the example set by Pope Benedict, who chose to baptize him personally despite the inevitable fallout.

The Easter-vigil baptism, Allam said, sent a unmistakable message from Pope Benedict to the entire world, and especially "to a Church that has recently been overly careful about the question of converting Muslims." Christians, he said, should overcome their fear of reprisals and preach the Gospel boldly, even in Islamic countries, confidently leaving the results in God's hands.

While militant Islamic leaders condemned Allam for forsaking the Muslim faith, other voices offered more measured criticism. Arif Ali Nayed, a member of the Muslim group sponsoring the "Common Word" initiative, said that the Vatican was exploiting the conversion as "a triumphalist tool for scoring points." He promised, however, that the Common Word group would persevere with plans for talks with the Vatican.

Allam is the most prominent Muslim in Europe to embrace the faith in recent years. Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of Kosovo's independence movement, was the subject of reports that he had converted to the Catholic faith before his death. But Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice, who held long private meetings with Rugova before the Kosovar leader's death in 2006, has never confirmed those reports. The conversion of Rugova, if it did indeed take place, could have had an enormous impact in Kosovo, a region of explosive religious tensions.







MUSLIMS-BAPTISM Mar-25-2008 (780 words) With photo posted March 24. xxxi

Muslim baptized by pope says he wanted to show others not to fear

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at the Easter Vigil said he wanted a public conversion to convince other former Muslims not to be afraid of practicing their new Christian faith.

But a representative of a group of Muslim scholars who recently launched a new dialogue with the Vatican said the prominence given to the baptism of Magdi Allam, a frequent critic of Islam, raises disturbing questions.

Allam, 55, was one of seven adults baptized by the pope March 22 in St. Peter's Basilica.

Aref Ali Nayed, a spokesman for the 138 Muslim scholars who initiated the Common Word dialogue project last October and who established the Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue with the Vatican in early March, said conversion is a private matter, but the very public way in which Allam was baptized appeared "deliberate and provocative."

In a March 25 interview with Il Giornale, an Italian newspaper, Allam said thousands of Italian Christians have converted to Islam with no repercussions.

"On the other hand, if a Muslim converts it is the end of the world and he is condemned to death for apostasy. In Italy there are thousands of converts who live their faith in secret for fear they will not be protected," Allam said.

"I publicly converted to say to these people: 'Come out of the catacombs, live your faith openly. Do not be afraid,'" he said.

In a March 23 article in Corriere della Sera, the newspaper for which he writes, Allam said, "His Holiness has launched an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that, up to now, has been too prudent in converting Muslims."

He said Catholics were "abstaining from proselytism in countries with a Muslim majority and being silent about the reality of converts in Christian countries out of fear -- the fear of not being able to protect the converts in the face of their condemnations to death for apostasy and for fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries."

"Well, with his witness today, Benedict XVI tells us we need to conquer our fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even to Muslims," Allam wrote in Corriere.

Allam told Il Giornale that although his mother was a devout Muslim she sent him to Catholic preschool, elementary and high schools. In the Corriere article, he said he even had gone to Communion once, which demonstrates how he had been attracted to the church for a long time.

He told Il Giornale his mother later regretted sending him to Catholic schools "because I never shared a certain zeal in practicing Islam; I always had a lot of autonomy. And, so, I became aware that Catholicism corresponded perfectly to the values that I held."

Allam also said his Easter baptism marked a total and definitive turning from "a past in which I imagined that there could be a moderate Islam."

He said Islamic "extremism feeds on a substantial ambiguity found in the Quran and in the concrete actions of Mohammed."

While he moved definitively away from Islam five years ago, Allam said it was Pope Benedict's teaching that convinced him to become a Catholic.

"He has said the basis for accepting a religion as true is how it accepts the basic rights of the person, the sacredness of life, freedom, choice (and) equality between men and women," Allam said.

In a written statement reacting to Allam's baptism by the pope at the globally televised Easter Vigil, Nayed said, "It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points."

In addition, he said, "It is sad that the particular person chosen for such a highly public gesture has a history of generating, and continues to generate, hateful discourse."

Nayed said it would be important for Pope Benedict and the Vatican to distance themselves from Allam's stance on Islam.

"The whole spectacle with its choreography, persona and messages provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," he said, adding that the Muslim scholars would continue their dialogue with the Vatican.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told the Italian news agency ApCom March 23 that he did not know how Allam came to be among the people baptized by the pope at the Easter Vigil "or who promoted it."

However, he said, freedom of conscience is a basic right and "to whomever knocks the door of the church is always open."

END

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