THE JERUSALEM POST: As the world focused on a pope’s election and the enthusiasm that immediately followed, another significant religious event escaped detection.
As the world focused on a pope’s election and the enthusiasm that immediately followed, another significant religious event escaped detection.
Two weeks after Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis I, a prominent Italian commentator who converted from Islam to Catholicism in 2008 announced he would leave the Church.
Magdi Allam – an emigrant from Egypt who fights Islamism in Europe and who was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI – wrote in his March 25 column for Milan’s Il Giornale that he was leaving “because this Church is too weak with Islam.”
Allam is right.
Since Pope John Paul II’s tenure, the Catholic Church has refused to hold Muslim theologians and clergy accountable for the hatred and violence many of them preach. Instead, the Vatican promotes dialogue and mutual understanding at all costs – even at the cost of moral credibility.
John Paul II condemned what he called a “culture of death,” referring to the West’s tolerance for abortion and birth control. Yet when faced with a more virulent culture of death – a Palestinian Authority that promotes genocide by teaching children to become suicide bombers – the late pope fell silent. Given Pope Francis’ history and recent actions, Israelis and Palestinians can expect more tired, limp rhetoric about peace that hides Catholicism’s sentimental complacency. » | Joseph D’Hippolito | Thursday, June 06, 2013
