How sad it is that so many of us Catholics take our gift of Faith for granted! After reading the astonishing story of Joseph Fadelle and his wife, I am sure, like myself, your soul will feel shaken over its lack of gratitude and complacency. We could have been born Iraqi Moslems and, from fear alone, never bothered to look into the Catholic Faith. I am convinced that it is this fear of persecution, even of death, that keeps Moslems, and other non-Christians in tyrannical countries, from inquiring about Jesus Christ from Catholics, few as they are today in those lands which, before Mohammed rose to power, were all once Christian. Then, there is the very real fear of death on the part of Catholics living under these regimes to even mention the Faith to a Moslem or Hindu. I do not believe there has ever been a century wherein there was more fear of the truth in the world. “The light shineth in the darknesss and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5). And it shines today in the darkness.
Yes, the devil does have his jihadist zealots, who spread terror, death, and hate to non-Moslems; who look for an excuse to kill “blasphemers;” and I fear their number is growing. But most Moslem men, and certainly the women, live a life of fear, fear of their own co-religionists, which is to be expected considering what the Koran teaches and the history of Islam, past and current. Nevertheless, they do receive sufficient grace and, given that, they can convert to Catholicism and thus they have no excuse, greater than their own sins against the moral law, for rejecting their Savior. Still, there is no denying the heavy veil that blinds them. Even Saint Francis Xavier, with not much success, had to pass beyond that wall of obstinacy in order to reach the more docile pagans in India and the Far East.
A Muslim’s Remarkable Conversion to Catholicism
(Tradition, Family, and Property) The fascinating autobiography of Muhammad Moussaoui, who narrates his conversion from Islam to Catholicism, shows miracles of grace and of human correspondence, on the one hand, and on the other hand the terrible harshness of Islamic mentality and persecution of Christians. The book’s title, The Price to Pay, summarizes well what this privileged soul had to go through in order to be faithful to the call of grace. After his conversion, he took the name Joseph Fadelle.
