“I realize 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.”
— Magdi Christian Allam.
Some voices in Europe and other places are presently criticizing the pope for his high profile baptism of Magdi Allam at the Easter Vigil. They assert that the pope is somehow taunting Islam and unnecessarily putting Mr. Allam’s life in danger, and perhaps the pope’s as well. I cannot know the pope’s mind. But I would like to suggest why he might do something so dramatic and frankly foolish in the eyes of the world:
I think the pope is making all kinds of points.
- He wants to uphold the example of this man who has stood up to Islam already for many years.
- He also wants to make an issue of the Muslim practice of assassination of those who convert out of it. Imagine the shame heaped on Islam if Allam is killed.
- He wants to show Muslims that reasonable and rational people, the very best of Islam are ashamed of what Islam has become.
- He wants to make a point to sleepy Europeans that Christianity is a faith worth dying for.
- He wants to give all the world an example of Christ-like willingness to die for the good, rather than to kill.
- He wants the world to know that it is superior to suffer violence than to commit it.
- He wants to show the world the moral and spiritual superiority of Christ and Christianity.
- He wants to show the world that the willingness to innocently suffer violence for one’s faith is not reserved to the earliest ages, but is a very present reality.
- He wants to highlight that Christians throughout the world willingly suffer violence for their faith every day.
- He wants to bring about religious freedom, a true liberation of personal conscience in the lands of Islam.
- He wants to give the Muslim world an example of Christian virtue that they will notice.
- Should Mr. Allam or Benedict lose their lives, he would want to offer martyrs for the sake of the Muslim world.
Finally, Magdi Allam, now on the world stage, may be safer than if he had not been in the spotlight. Who knows?
David Bennett
Jennifer
asimplesinner
Fr. J.
Chad Toney
Jorge Flores
Jonathan B
carmelbennett
nicenehobbit
Jason S
jaybird68
papaz
March 24, 2008 at 2:52 am
Mr. Magdi is one of the most prominent Muslims in Western Europe. As the deputy editor of the most widely circulated daily in Italy, he already had fatwas calling for his assassination because he repudiated jihad and because he was not active in the mosque.
Regardless of where his baptism would have taken place, his conversion to Christianity will result in renewed efforts to kill him by the misunderstanders of Islam. Some will surely try to prove that he wasn’t a Muslim in the first place.
Should Mr. Magdi suffer martyrdom at the hands of the religion of peace, he will be in great company. Many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, make conversion a capital crime.
Imagine a religion that requires non-believers to pay for protection from them! Some call that the Mob. Others Islam.
March 24, 2008 at 3:07 am
Do you mean to elevate the Mob to religion status? Like praying for the intercession of Jimmy Hoffa? He’s definitely dead, but even mobsters would likely argue that it’s blasphemy to refer to the Mob as a religion.
March 24, 2008 at 3:46 am
No, Nan, I think he isn’t ellevating the mob here…. I think he is taking it in another direction altogether.
This is a curious action to take in the face of threats from no less than the cave-dweller we all love to hate, Osamma B. Compounded with the recent opening of a Catholic Church in Qatar and the flowering of Catholicism in Dubai (http://romanmiscellany.blogspot.com/search/label/Arabia)… So close on the heels of the assasination of the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul no less.
We live in interesting times, indeed.
Pray for the safety of all converts and Christians living as minorities in lands that are hostile, and the safety of all converts. Pray always for the safety of our good German Shepherd, Benedict XVI, Pope of Rome.
March 24, 2008 at 4:33 am
Ah, the racketeers of Islam inspired the Mob. Now I see.
Prayers for the intercession of St. John de Matha, Our Lady of Good Remedy for the safety of Christians and converts in Muslim territories; Prayers for the intercession of Bl. Method Trčka for the safety of all Christians and converts in hostile places. Prayers for the continuing safety and good health of our Easter Pope.
March 24, 2008 at 4:43 am
These are trying and dangerous times, but thank You, gracious Lord Jesus, for giving us such a good and courageous Pope! May the Lord, at the intercession of His all-blameless Mother and all the saints, preserve our Pope in health and peace and all who through conversion to Christ put their lives in peril.+
March 24, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Islam requires non-believers to pay the dhimmi jizyah, the so-called non-believer tax or face death (Surah 9:29). I was comparing that enlightened practice of the religion of peace to the “health tax” exacted by mobsters. There is a striking similarity.
Islam, as Mr. Allam argues, isn’t a religion at all. It is an ideology with a religious genesis and justification. Furthermore, as Mr. Allam argues, Islam is a violent ideology that denies fundamental human rights and freedoms and reason itself. The greatest thing we can offer those who practice Islam is the freedom not to be a Muslim which is a freedom that that overwhelming majority of Muslims do not have.
March 24, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I agree on many of your points you laid out Simple Sinner. I’d like to add (or modify) one of them that Pope Benedict wanted to tell the world, especially Islam, that Christians in the Catholic Church are also evangelizers. That we will bear testimony to our faith.
By taking this bold and public action I agree on another of your points that he is pushing for reciprocity within Islam itself. Not only to build churches in Muslim majority nations, but to allow for peaceful conversion out of Islam.
These are telling times and Pope Benedict is on his way to being one of the great popes in modern memory.
God bless him and His Church.
Tito
March 24, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I pray for the safety of Mr. Allam and the Holy Father. May Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary protect them!
March 25, 2008 at 5:26 am
Dr. Acula, I suspect you know exactly what you are referring to when you say “Our Lady of the Rosary.” I feel a post coming on.
March 25, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I love Pope Benedict and his awesome frankness and straight-forward manner. If anything, it means that people should be able to trust him all the more easier, since he means what he does and does what he says.
Prayers for Pope Benedict, Magdi Christian Allam, and all those facing persecution, injustice, and death from the hands of the enemies of Christ. Prayers also for the conversion of the hearts of those doing the persecution.
In Christ,
Anthony
April 28, 2008 at 6:03 pm
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