KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
March 25, 2008
TOPIC: TWO PROFILES IN COURAGE
Dear Subscriber:
Samuel Johnson remarked that "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Let me put that in a contemporary context: When a man knows he is the object of a fatwa, he likely will make sure that he remains in the state of grace.
So my thinking went as I read about Magdi Allam, who was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI on the vigil of Easter. Allam is a deputy editor of "Corriere della Sera" ("Evening Courier"), Italy's largest-circulation newspaper, which is based in Milan and takes a center-right political stance.
Allam, 55, was born in Egypt and writes on Islam and on Arab politics and culture. He has been a supporter of Israel, has condemned Muslim fanatics, and has defended the Pope's Regensburg speech.
After Allam criticized Palestinian suicide bombings in 2003, threats were made on his life, and the Italian government provided him with a police guard, which he still has. He will need it all the more now that he has renounced Islam and become a Catholic.
Allam had been a nominal Muslim. He did not perform the customary five-times-a-day prayers facing Mecca, and he did not undertake the Ramadan fast. He did accompany his devout mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991.
On Easter Sunday "Corriere della Sera" published Allam's open letter to the editor. Addressed to Paolo Mieli, the letter is a moving proclamation of faith. Let me quote a few passages from it. The translation is my own.
Allam said, "Yesterday evening I converted to the Catholic Christian religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. I finally saw the light, through divine grace, the healthy and ripe fruit of a long gestation lived in suffering and in joy ...
"I am particularly grateful to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who has imparted to me the sacraments of initiation--baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist--in the Basilica of St. Peter in the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter vigil."
Then the new convert showed that he had no intention of playing down his adherence to his new faith. Referring to his baptismal name, he wrote: "I have assumed the most simple and explicit Christian name: 'Christian.' Since yesterday, therefore, my name is 'Magdi Christian Allam.'"
He continued this way:
"For me [this is] the most beautiful day of my life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith on the memorial of the Resurrection of Christ from the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable privilege and an inestimable good. ...
"[This is the] authentic religion of Truth, of Life, and of Liberty. In my first Easter as a Christian I not only have discovered Jesus but have discovered for the first time the true and unique God, who is the God of Faith and Reason."
These lines are a strong challenge to Islam, which emphasizes the uniqueness of Allah--so unique, so isolated, that in Islam the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation can't be entertained in any way.
Allam is saying that the "true and unique God" is not to be found in Islam, which claims him but does not have him, and that the God of Islam is not really the God of faith and reason.
Later in his open letter Allam turned again explicitly to his newspaper's editor and wrote, "Dear editor, you ask whether I fear for my life in the consciousness that my conversion to Christianity certainly will obtain for me a death sentence for apostasy. You are quite right."
Allam said that he will "face my fate with head high, with back straight, and with interior sureness of one who has the certainty of his faith."
Then he said that "His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversation with Muslims, refraining from evangelizing in countries with an Islamic majority and being quiet about the reality of conversions in Christian countries. Out of fear. Fear of not being able to protect converts from condemnation to death for apostasy [from Islam] and fear of reprisals against Christian residents of Islamic countries.
"Well then, today Benedict XVI, with his testimony, says we need to overcome the fear and not be timorous in the affirmation of the truth of Jesus even among the Muslims. ...
"In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who serenely live their new faith. But there also are thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are impelled to conceal their new faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who hide among us."
Allam concluded his open letter by saying that he hopes the "historic gesture of the Pope and my testimony will bring out the conviction that the moment has arrived to leave the shadows of the catacombs and to affirm publicly our will to be fully what we are.
"If we cannot have here in Italy, in the cradle of Catholicism, our home, a guarantee of full religious liberty, how will we ever be able to be credible when we denounce the violation of such liberty elsewhere in the world?"
NOT EVERYONE WAS PLEASED
As you might expect, not everyone has applauded Allam's conversion. Yahya Pallavicini, the vice president of the Islamic Religious Community in Italy, said that "there is no need, to demonstrate love for Jesus, to renounce the faith of the Prophet Mohammed."
Pallavicini said it was unfortunate that Allam was baptized in such a public manner; he thought it would have been better had it been done by "a priest in Viterbo," where Allam lives.
He went on to say that he did not understand how one could "renounce the tradition, the culture, and the truthfulness of the Islamic message," and he accused Allam of "apostasy."
The irony is that Pallavicini himself is an apostate: He was brought up as a Catholic!
THE OTHER COURAGEOUS MAN
I titled this E-Letter "Two Profiles in Courage" because not only has Allam done a courageous thing, putting himself even deeper into jeopardy, but so has the man who completed Allam's reception into the Church: Pope Benedict XVI.
It would have been easy enough for the Pope to indicate that Allam should have been received into the Church by his parish priest--that, after all, is what is done almost universally. It could not have been an accident that Allam was one of only seven converts who were baptized in St. Peter's by the Pope.
No, the Pope was sending a message, very much in line, I think, with what Allam wrote in his open letter. The message is that Muslims too ought to become Catholics and that Catholics ought to proclaim that truth, even at the risk of (or at the near certainty of) reprisals.
Islam is further removed from Catholicism than is Judaism; Judaism is further removed than is Protestantism. We have little trouble inviting Protestants to complete their faith by becoming Catholics. We invite Jews to do the same (as emphasized by the Pope's recent revision of the prayer, used at Good Friday in the Tridentine Mass, that calls for prayers that Jews may convert).
The further away from Catholicism someone is, the more he needs it. It would be an act of uncharity to Muslims to leave them out of the picture. Allam thinks that Catholics have a duty to invite Muslims to become Catholics. Not only does the Pope think the same way, but he has put himself at risk in affirming this message.
That's why we say, with joy, "Habemus papam!"
FOOTNOTE
Writing about the breaking story at GetReligion.org, contributor Mollie Ziegler sought to correct phrasing used by Reuter's Philip Pullella in his report of Allam's conversion.
She said that his opening paragraph "makes a common error that might not seem important but is. While baptism confers membership into a specific church body, people aren't baptized a Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Catholic. They baptized into the Christian faith. ... On the radio and television, however, I and a few readers kept hearing about this 'baptized a Catholic' terminology. It takes a few more words, but it's important to be precise when dealing with sacraments."
I agree it's important, so I hope Ziegler will not mind if I correct her.
There is only one baptism, Scripture tells us. There also is only one Church established by Christ. That Church is the Catholic Church, which means that baptism is Catholic baptism, there being no other.
When a person is baptized, he actually is baptized into the Church that Christ founded, which means he is baptized into the Catholic Church--whether or not he understands that.
Thus, an infant baptized at a Methodist church is a Catholic, until, at some later point, he comes to understand himself to be a Methodist or something else.
An adult who is baptized at a Methodist church would cease to be a Catholic almost instantaneously, since he would understand himself to be, even during the ceremony, a Methodist.
However that may be, the fact is that baptism is a Catholic sacrament, as are all the other sacraments. Thus it is quite right for someone to say that Magdi Allam was baptized into the Catholic Church--because that is precisely what happened.
Until next time,
Karl
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