From The Australian, we learn that “Pope Benedict XVI has risked a renewed rift with the Muslim world by baptising a converted Muslim born journalist who describes Islam as intrinsically violent and characterised by ‘hate and intolerance’ rather than ‘love and respect for others’.”
The baptism took place at the Easter vigil at St. Peter’s on Saturday night and was kept a secret until an hour before the ceremony.
By taking such interest in a high-profile conversion, it appears that the Holy Father is teaching us that the Church is interested in saving souls even when it may cost in terms of violent counteraction or diplomatic losses. This is the ultimate way to combat jihad, the “Saint Francis solution”: converting them.
Excerpts:
However, in a combative article for Corriere della Sera, the Italian paper 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 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: “Beyond the phenomenon of 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 in Egypt and and previously described himself as a “not very devout” Muslim, was one of seven adults baptised during the Easter vigil, which is 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 because of the fear of being unable to protect the converted, who are condemned to death for apostasy”. [Full story]
