The murder of Bishop Padovese brings home the point that the road to Islamic-Christian understanding is far from realized despite long years at attempts at dialogues. The Church is not even close to the goal. She has lost scores of priests and religious just in the last two decades. Too much blood has been shed …
I have been struck by the words of Mgr Guiseppe Bernardini (then Archbishop of Izmir, Turkey), in his letter to the Synod of European Bishops in October 1999. He wrote that “the Muslims have a clear program and re-conquest.” He called on the pope (Pope JP II at that time) to convene a special Vatican meeting to find a common strategy towards Muslims living in Christian countries, as an intervention to the problem of Europe.
The Monsignor proposed to the Holy Father to “organize a Synod or Symposium of Bishops and operators in the pastoral ministry for immigrants, with particular reference to the Islamic ones, widening the scope to the Reformed and Orthodox Churches.”
He said, “The symposium could be useful to deepen in a collegial way the problem of the Islamic people in Christian countries, and thus find a common strategy to face it and resolve it in a Christian and objective way. We must agree on the principles, even if their applications will vary depending on the places and the persons. Nothing is worse than disagreement on principles!”
As I understand, the Monsignor wanted to reach an agreement on principles, defining the terms and concepts of “dialogue”, “rights of man”, “justice”, and “reciprocity”, as understood and accepted by all.
In his letter, he listed three cases that he had knowledge of:
- During an official meeting on Islamic-Christian dialogue, an authoritative Muslim person, speaking to the Christians participating, at one point said very calmly and assuredly: “Thanks to your democratic laws we will invade you; thanks to our religious laws we will dominate you.”
This is to be believed because the “dominion” has already begun with the “petrol-dollars,” used not to create work in the poor North African or Middle Eastern countries, but to build mosques and cultural centers in Christian countries with Islamic immigration, including Rome, the center of Christianity. How can we ignore in all of this a clear program of expansion and re-conquest?
- During another Islamic-Christian meeting, always organized by Christians, a Christian participant publicly asked the Muslims present why they did not organize at least once a meeting of this kind. The Muslim authority present answered the following words: “Why should we? You have nothing to teach us and we have nothing to learn.”
A dialogue among deaf persons? It is a fact that terms such as “dialogue,” “justice,” “reciprocity,” or concepts such as “rights of man,” “democracy,” have a completely different meaning for the Muslim than for us. But I believe this to be recognized and admitted by all, by now.
- In a Catholic monastery in Jerusalem there was and perhaps still is a Muslim Arab servant. An honest and gentle person, he was respected greatly by the religious who in turn were respected by him. One day, he sadly told them: “Our chiefs have met and have decided that all the ‘infidels’ must be killed, but do not fear because I will kill you without making you suffer.”
We are all aware that we must distinguish between the fanatic and violent minority from the tranquil and honest majority, but this, at an order given in the name of Allah or the Qur’an, will always march compact and without hesitations. Anyway, history teaches us that the secure minorities always manage to impose themselves over the renouncing and silent majority.
It would be naive to underestimate or, worse yet, smile on the three cases I have referred to; I feel that their dramatic teaching must be reflected upon …
Thanks to the Internet, I was able to dig up the contents of Mgr Bernardini’s letter.
See here:
Note the third case in his list. Remember this is eleven years ago. The circumstance is not unlike last month’s beheading of Mgr Padovese by his Muslim driver.
The tragedy is that the beheading of the "old bishop” was not just to eliminate a soldier of Christ. The grisly act symbolically beheaded the Church in Turkey. Turkey which was a Christian land before, and now with just .13% left as Christians out of its 73 milliion population.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to pray hard (get those rosaries out!) and include the Church in Turkey, our Pope Benedict and Holy Mother Church in our Sunday Mass intentions. Our Church is under siege on so many fronts.
Thank you. As you may know, “sofia” means “wisdom” in Greek, so I suppose you could say that I am in search of grace and wisdom (although Grace is a part of my “real” name).