"The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth it is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so; to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant." (-John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).

"Where the bishop is, there let the people gather; just as where ever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church". -St. Ignatius of Antioch (ca 110 AD)a martyr later thrown to the lions, wrote to a church in Asia Minor. Antioch was also where the term "Christian" was first used.

“But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15

"This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic." -CCC 811
Showing posts with label Islamic Intolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamic Intolerance. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Why Thomas Aquinas Distrusted Islam by Dr. Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.
Source: BREITBART


The 13th-century scholar Thomas Aquinas, regarded as one of the most eminent medieval philosophers and theologians, offered a biting critique of Islam based in large part on the questionable character and methods of its founder, Mohammed.

According to Aquinas, Islam appealed to ignorant, brutish, carnal men and spread not by the power of its arguments or divine grace but by the power of the sword.

Aquinas, a keen observer of the human condition, was familiar with the chief works of the Muslim philosophers of his day–including Avicenna, Algazel, and Averroes–and engaged them in his writings.

Since Islam was founded and spread in the seventh century, Aquinas—considered by Catholics as a saint and doctor of the Church—lived in a period closer to that of Mohammed than to our own day.

In one of his most significant works, the voluminous Summa contra gentiles, which Aquinas wrote between 1258 and 1264 AD, the scholar argued for the truth of Christianity against other belief systems, including Islam.

Aquinas contrasts the spread of Christianity with that of Islam, arguing that much of Christianity’s early success stemmed from widespread belief in the miracles of Jesus, whereas the spread of Islam was worked through the promise of sensual pleasures and the violence of the sword.

Mohammad, Aquinas wrote, “seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure.”

Such an offer, Aquinas contended, appealed to a certain type of person of limited virtue and wisdom.

“In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men,” he wrote. “As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.”

Because of the weakness of Islam’s contentions, Aquinas argued, “no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning.” Instead, those who believed in him “were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms.”

Islam’s violent methods of propagation were especially unconvincing to Aquinas, since he found that the use of such force does not prove the truth of one’s claims, and are the means typically used by evil men.

“Mohammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms,” Aquinas wrote, “which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.”

At the time Aquinas was writing, Islam was generally considered a Christian heresy, since it drew so heavily on Christian texts and beliefs. Aquinas wrote that Mohammed “perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law.”

According to the noted historian Hilaire Belloc, Islam “began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. Its vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was—not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing.”

In his Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas ends his argument against Islam by offering a backhanded compliment to Mohammed, noting that he had to keep his followers ignorant in order for them to remain faithful.

It was, Aquinas wrote, “a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity.”

“It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly,” he wrote.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome

Saturday, September 5, 2015

MUST WATCH: Green Lane Islamic Mosque in Burminghan, UK was filmed preaching HATRED against non-Muslims (kuffar)

The Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith UK, commonly referred to as Green Lane Mosque, a mosque in Birmingham.

Established in the 1970s, the Masjid occupies a prominent corner site in Green Lane, Small Heath, Birmingham. One of the buildings had been constructed as a public library and baths, designed by local architects Martin & Chamberlain and built in the redbrick and terracotta Gothic-Jacobean style between 1893 and 1902. It is a Grade II listed building. The complex includes prayer halls for men and women, a community hall, madrasah, library, shop, some accommodation, and it also provides funeral services to the local Muslim community.

It was also one of the main mosques that featured in Channel 4's Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque, which investigated religious extremism in British mosques including preachers advocating violence, anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia. West Midlands Police subsequently investigated the programme, feeling there may have been a misrepresentation of the mosque that could have incited religious hatred.

The mosque works closely with Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police and local emergency services and, in 2007, came second in a national competition run by the British Islam Channel to find the country's 'Model Mosque'. -Wikipedia

Sunday, March 22, 2015

THE ISRAEL TIMES: Saudi grand mufti calls for demolition of churches

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah says Christian religious sites in Arabian Peninsula must be razed in accordance with Muslim law


Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim cleric called on Tuesday for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula after legislators in the Gulf state of Kuwait moved to pass laws banning the construction of religious sites associated with Christianity

Speaking to a delegation in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, who serves as the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, said the destruction of churches was absolutely necessary and is required by Islamic law, Arabic media reported.

Abdullah, who is considered to be the highest official of religious law in the Sunni Muslim kingdom, also serves as the head of the Supreme Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars) and of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas.

Last month, Osama Al-Munawer, a Kuwaiti member of parliament, announced his plans to submit a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in the country, according to the Arabian Businesses news site. Al-Munawer later clarified that the law would only apply to new churches, while old ones would be allowed to stay erect.



Read more: Saudi grand mufti calls for demolition of churches | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-grand-mufti-calls-for-demolition-of-churches/#ixzz3VFgro8Pn
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

Friday, March 13, 2015

Christianity (Catholics) is the World's most persecuted religion! And Islam is its main persecutor!

As reported by Catholic News Agency...

“The world’s two largest religious groups, Christians and Muslims, continued to be harassed in the most countries, and there was a notable increase in the number of countries in which Jews and adherents of folk religions were harassed,” the Pew Research Center said in a Feb. 26 report on trends in religion-related restrictions and hostilities.

Christian groups suffered social or government harassment in 102 countries in 2013, while Muslims faced similar problems in 99 countries. Jewish groups faced harassment in 77 countries, a seven-year high."
Mr. Paul Vallely, Chief Rabbi also confirmed this fact:

"...the plain fact is that Christians are languishing in jail for blasphemy in Pakistan, and churches are burned and worshippers regularly slaughtered in Nigeria and Egypt, which has recently seen its worst anti-Christian violence in seven centuries.

The most violent anti-Christian pogrom of the early 21st century saw as many as 500 Christians hacked to death by machete-wielding Hindu radicals in Orissa, India, with thousands more injured and 50,000 made homeless. In Burma, Chin and Karen Christians are routinely subjected to imprisonment, torture, forced labour and murder.

Persecution is increasing in China; and in North Korea a quarter of the country's Christians live in forced labour camps after refusing to join the national cult of the state's founder, Kim Il-Sung. Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be a Christian."

That includes Christians murdered by Muslims of Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Jamaat Islamiah, ISIS, Abu Sayyaf, MILF, MNLF, Bangsamoro Fighters, heads chopped and bodies mutilated while Muslims harassment is due to their dirty bearded looks, and so far none of them was beheaded nor mutilated because they're Muslims. And thanks to the Muslim US President Barack Hussein Obama for doing nothing against Islamic extremists and Muslim terrorists!

Coptic Christians in Egypt (Source: Frontpage Mag)
Mr. Raymond Ibrahim, a Muslim converted to Christianity has enumerated some few incidents  among the many atrocities around the world where Muslims persecute (and even kill) Christians in the name of Islam!

Saudi Arabia: Religious police stormed a house in the province of al-Jouf, detaining more than 41 guests for, in the words of the police statement, “plotting to celebrate Christmas.” Meanwhile, despite Saudi Arabia being well documented for its religious hostility to all non-Muslims—the Grand Mufti himself recently called for the destruction of all churches in the Peninsula— just as a new “interreligious dialogue and tolerance,” funded by Saudi Arabia, was opened in Vienna. Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, the imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, boasted: “The formation of this centre in the West with King Abdullah’s support gives a strong message that Islam is a religion of dialogue and understanding and not a religion of enmity, fanaticism and violence.” Yet Sudais himself has previously referred to Jews as “monkeys and pigs” and the “rats of the world,” and to Christians as “cross worshippers” and “those influenced by the rottenness of their ideas.”
Such a double-standard shown by Muslims when they live within our democratic countries!

Yes! Muslims persecute Christians, not because they dislike our appearances but because  they hate our religion:
Other Christian groups such as various Protestant sects, Born-Again groups, some Evangelical groups, Iglesia Ni Cristo®, Ang Dating Daan®, persecute Catholics
And  non-believers hate us for our strong stand against
Yes, we are the Christians who have been harassed and persecuted for more than 2,000 years now but still we grow by the millions every year. This is because WE ARE THE CHURCH! WE ARE CATHOLICS! And we are the ORIGINAL CHRISTIANS pronounced in Antioch to Rome and to the world!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

MALAYSIA'S CURSE: Catholic Church loses legal battle to use the word 'Allah' in reference to God

Arab Christians have been using the word 'Allah' in pre-Islamic period. The Apostle Creed in Arabic says it: (Source: Creationism.org):


بالحقيقة نؤمن بإله واحد، الله الآب، ضابط الكل، خالق السماء والأرض، ما يُرَى وما لا يرى.
نؤمن برب واحد يسوع المسيح، ابن الله الوحيد، المولود من الآب قبل كل الدهور، نور من نور، إله حق من إله حق.
مولود غير مخلوق، مساو للآب في الجوهر، الذي به كان كل شئ. هذا الذي من أجلنا نحن البشر، ومن أجل خلاصنا، نزل من السماء، وتجسد من الروح القدس ومن مريم العذراء، وتأنس.
وصلب عنا على عهد بيلاطس البنطي. وتألم وقبر وقام من بين الأموات في اليوم الثالث كما في الكتب.
وصعد إلى السموات، وجلس عن يمين أبيه، وأيضا يأتي في مجده ليدين الأحياء والأموات، الذي ليس لملكه انقضاء. نعم نؤمن بالروح القدس، الرب المحيى المنبثق من الآب. نسجد له ونمجده مع الآب والإبن. الناطق في الأنبياء.
وبكنيسة واحدة مقدسة جامعة رسولية. ونعترف بمعمودية واحدة لمغفرة الخطايا.
وننتظر قيامة الأموات وحياة الدهر الآتي. أمين.

Sadly, the Federal Court of Malaysia finally BAN Catholics from using the word 'Allah' [Arabic الله‎ ] in reference to the One Almighty God!

"Allah (English pronunciation: /ˈælə/ or /ˈɑːlə/; Arabic: الله‎ Allāh,  is the Arabic word for God (al ilāh, literally "the God"). The word has cognates in other Semitic languages, including Elah in Aramaic, ʾĒl in Canaanite and Elohim in Hebrew.

"It is used mainly by Muslims to refer to God in Islam, but it has also been used by Arab Christians since pre-Islamic times. -Wikipedia

How could Malaysia's majority Muslims be given the EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS to use the word 'Allah' when in the West MINORITY MUSLIMS keep on telling non-Muslims that 'WE ARE BROTHERS' with 'THE SAME GOD'.  How could we refrain from STEREOTYPING MUSLIMS and ISLAM as a religion when what WESTERN MUSLIM APOLOGISTS say is different from MUSLIMS say in Islamic countries.  Could this be MYTHS OF ISLAM:
"Muslims often complain of popular "misconceptions" about their religion in the West.

"We took a hard look, however, and found that the most prevalent myths of Islam are the ones held by Muslims and Western apologists. The only glaring exception to this is the misconception that all Muslims are alike (they aren't, of course), but even Muslims often believe this as well, as evidenced by the various contrary factions insisting that they are the true Muslims, while those who disagree with them are either infidels, hijackers, or hypocrites."
Malaysia's  FEDERAL COURTS decision only PROVES what CRITICS of ISLAM in the WEST have been saying since the Islamic terrorist attacks in the US in 9-11. If Muslims around the world wish that minority Muslims in other countries are respected, THEY SHOULD KNOW how to RESPECT RELIGIOUS MINORITIES in Islamic States such as Malaysia!

Let's learn from JESUS, the Son of God / the Prophet of God:

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets. -Mt. 7:12
Malaysia Church loses battle to use 'Allah' in Catholic newspaper
The Federal Court in Malaysia has ruled that the Catholic Church has no right to use the term “Allah” which means God in the newsweekly Herald.
The decision follows the Church’s five year-long legal battle for the constitutional right to use the phrase.
A five-man bench led by Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong unanimously upheld that here had been no procedural unfairness in the Federal Court's earlier decision not to grant leave. He added that the threshold for the review had not been met. 
A seven-member panel of federal court judges on June 23, 2014, dismissed the church's application for leave to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision to ban the Herald from using the Arabic word for "God" in its Bahasa language content.
Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria was among the four on the panel who dismissed the church's application, in a 4-3 "skin of our teeth" judgment, as the church's lawyers have called it, that saw three other judges dissenting.
With no more legal avenues to pursue for the right to use the word "Allah" in the Herald, the publication’s editor Rev Father Lawrence Andrew expressed disappointment on Wednesday that the Federal Court's dismissal of the appeal would further undermine the rights of minorities.
"Malay has been the language in the church in Malaya for centuries and I have shown evidence [that Bahasa Malaysia] was already a language of worship for hundreds of years in devotional booklets,” he said. "And during this period, there was no trouble whatsoever, so I don't see an possibility of evoking trouble.”
The word “Allah” is widely used by the Christians in Sabah and Sarawak and the church has argued that the ban of its use in the Herald is a violation of freedom of religion and expression.
Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) politician Gan Peng Sieu, who is also a lawyer and was holding a watching brief on the case for the party, described the Federal Court's decision as a great injustice.
Islam is the official language of Malaysia, whose population is 61% Muslim, 20% Buddhist, 9% Christian, and 6% Hindu. About half of Christians in the Southeast Asian nation are catholic.
My heartfelt sympathy to all Victims of this curse. May they ALL REST IN PEACE!

Curse of Malaysia Airlines? 5 tragic moments in airline's history before MH17 and MH370 -Mirror.co.uk

Missing AirAsia QZ8501 and MH370: Twitter reacts to 'cursed' Malaysian flights -International Business Times

‘Is it a curse?’ Prayers for missing AirAsia plane -Al Arabiya News

The curse of Malaysia Airlines: MH17 brings back nightmares of MH370 -Daily Star News 

Sunday, January 4, 2015

For Muslim apostates, giving up their faith can be terrifying, alienating and dangerous


[Source: National Post] In many Muslim-majority countries, renouncing Islam is a crime punishable by death. But even in the liberal West, some ex-Muslims continue to fear leaving their faith. Although reformists point to the Qur’anic ruling,”there is no compulsion in religion,” they hide their disbelief or risk being ostracized by their families and the wider ummah (community) of believers. In extreme cases they believe their status as “apostates of the faith” puts them in danger. Simon Cottee, a senior lecturer in criminology at Kent University, England., interviewed 35 former Muslims in Britain and Canada as part of the first major sociological study of ex-Muslims in the west. He based this piece on fieldwork in Canada.

Halima is an 18-year-old biology student from a strict Muslim family in Ontario.

Although she continues to wear the hijab and dresses conservatively, Halima no longer prays or fasts. Nor does she abide by the restrictions against alcohol and pork, and she has all but forgotten the Qur’an — the holy book she once had committed to memory.

“They think I’m a bad Muslim,” she says of her family, “but I doubt if they’d ever think I’m an ex-Muslim.”

She adds she cannot imagine what would happen if she told her father, a well-known religious leader. “That would be the end. He would never accept my apostasy.”

Halima, who asked that her real name not be used, has good reason for concern.

“There was a lot of pressure to be completely religious,” she says of her childhood. And any and all deviations were vigorously punished.

She remembers one incident in particular.

“There was a tear in a page and my father assumed I’d ripped it,” she says. “He got my hand — and put it on the stove.”

After a teacher noticed the burn, the Children’s Aid Society interviewed her parents, who said it was an accident. CAS didn’t pursue the matter, but this did little to placate her father, who castigated her for bringing “kaffirs” (unbelievers) into the house.

‘I just couldn’t agree with most of the stuff, especially with the treatment of women — that got me out of Islam’

Halima still spent up to three hours a day studying Arabic and the Qur’an into her teen years, and rarely missed the five daily prayers that are obligatory for Muslims.

But ultimately, she says, “I just couldn’t agree with most of the stuff, especially with the treatment of women — that got me out of Islam.”

In her mid-teens, she also discovered the online forum of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, which gave her the courage to finally admit to herself she didn’t believe anymore and wanted to leave the faith. Before that, she “had never even heard of apostates.”

In the past few months, Halima finally had to take action.

Last year, her father started proceedings to bring a friend over from Yemen, a man in his mid-50s, to marry his daughter. Under immense pressure, she agreed to the engagement and signed the sponsorship papers to enable him to settle in Canada. But she couldn’t go through with it and fled her home.

“I just filled in two bags of my papers and stuff and told my brother, ‘I have to take out the trash,’ and there was a cab waiting for me and I went straight to the shelter.”

Her flight has confused as well as enraged her parents.

“Come home — or you’ll regret it,” her father recently warned her on Facebook.

————————————

Zain, 27, is one of the few who has disclosed his apostasy to his family. Born in Britain to Pakistani parents, he came to Canada at age 20.

“As a kid I really believed with all my heart, but my faith just kind of went away,” he says. “It flickered out. I stopped feeling the presence of God. And that’s when I took seriously the possibility of Islam being wrong.”

Discovering philosophy — now one of his passions, especially the iconoclastic works of Friedrich Nietzsche — led him to conclude “there really isn’t a defence for any of it [religion].”

It also opened his mind to different points of view. “I realized that I don’t want to stick to just one way of looking at the world.”

By 19 he was agnostic — and in love with Mel, a Winnipeg woman he met online. They decided to elope and she flew to Britain.


But somehow Zain’s family found out and intercepted them at the airport. An uncle was especially furious: “He’s a tough guy who likes to throw his weight around and he was saying, ‘I could chop you up into little pieces and put you in the Thames right now and no one will find out.’” His father also was angry, telling him not “ruin his life for a girl.”

Why there are no Muslim converts to Christianity? Well... they are KILLED!

[From JihadWatch]“I could chop you up into little pieces and put you in the Thames”
“I could chop you up into little pieces and put you in the Thames right now and no one will find out.” 

Those words were spoken by a Muslim uncle to his ex-Muslim nephew. This article tells the stories of several ex-Muslims, but it doesn’t explain why it has proven so difficult for them to leave Islam — indeed, true to form for the mainstream media, it gives the impression that Muslims who threaten or shun apostates are violating the Qur’an’s dictum that “there is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Author Simon Cottee doesn’t mention, and may not know, that a hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.

“For Muslim apostates, giving up their faith can be terrifying, alienating and dangerous,” by Simon Cottee, National Post, January 2, 2015 (thanks to Daniel):

In many Muslim-majority countries, renouncing Islam is a crime punishable by death. But even in the liberal West, some ex-Muslims continue to fear leaving their faith. Although reformists point to the Qur’anic ruling,”there [sic] is no compulsion in religion,” they hide their disbelief or risk being ostracized by their families and the wider ummah (community) of believers. In extreme cases they believe their status as “apostates of the faith” puts them in danger. Simon Cottee, a senior lecturer in criminology at Kent University, England., [sic] interviewed 35 former Muslims in Britain and Canada as part of the first major sociological study of ex-Muslims in the west. He based this piece on fieldwork in Canada.

Halima is an 18-year-old biology student from a strict Muslim family in Ontario.

Although she continues to wear the hijab and dresses conservatively, Halima no longer prays or fasts. Nor does she abide by the restrictions against alcohol and pork, and she has all but forgotten the Qur’an — the holy book she once had committed to memory.

“They think I’m a bad Muslim,” she says of her family, “but I doubt if they’d ever think I’m an ex-Muslim.”

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

CRIME worst than killing: HAVING a BIBLE! Why there's so much fear for Muslims to read the Bible?

When Muslims would tell you that ISLAM is a RELIGION of PEACE and TOLERANCE, that's not exactly what's in their hearts. In Saudi, having a Bible is a crime; wearing a cross is a public offense but when they kill and butcher there's no moral question for that.  Judeo-Christian sense of morality is not compatible with Islamic sense of morality.  Our common human moral standards with Jews, Hindus, Buddhist, Taoist are in exact opposite to Islamic jurisprudence.  -CD2000

Report: Islamic Saudi Arabia Passes Law That May Impose Death Penalty on Bible Smugglers (Source: ChristianNews)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Recent reports state that officials in the Islamic country of Saudi Arabia have passed a law that may impose the death penalty on Bible smugglers and any others distributing religious materials that are not of the Muslim religion.

“[T]he new law extends to the importing of all illegal drugs and ‘all publications that have a prejudice to any other religious beliefs other than Islam,'” Paul Washer’s HeartCry Missionary Society outlines in a post on their website. “In other words, anyone who attempts to bring Bibles or gospel literature into the country will have all materials confiscated and be imprisoned and sentenced to death.”

It points to an article on the Copts Today website, which notes that “indecent materials and publications” are also included in the customs prohibition.

Reporters have attempted to obtain confirmation of the report from Saudi Arabia’s U.S. Embassy press officer in Washington, but the information has neither been confirmed or denied.

“Sometimes they don’t want to say anything (to the media),” a representative named Cecelia told WND.

The United Nations has also declined to comment on whether or not the report is accurate.

As the HeartCry Missionary Society notes in pointing to a video on Prayercast, Saudi Arabia has a long history of hostility toward Christians, as it is illegal to convert to Christianity in the country, a crime considered to be apostasy against Islam and punishable by death.

“Christians are raped, abducted, murdered, and beaten on a daily basis. Saudis who accept Christ as their Savior are choosing to pick up a cross of ostracism, discrimination, harassment, and even death,” it outlines. “They risk losing their jobs, access to education for their children, or even the right to basic utilities like water and electricity.”

Open Doors International likewise reports that Christians are forced to worship in secret as it classifies Saudi Arabia as #6 on its “World Watch List” of the 100 most dangerous places to live as a Christian. Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca and the “Mosque of the Prophet,” which contains the tomb of the Islamic prophet Mohammad.

“The open practice of any religion other than Islam is forbidden here, and conversion to another faith is punishable by death. Most Christians are ex-pats from Asia or Africa,” it states. “During 2013, several Christian migrant fellowships were raided by police, and tens of worshipers detained and deported. Muslim-background believers run the risk of honor killing if their faith is discovered.”

The U.S. Department of State noted several other cases in its 2009 report on religious freedom in the country.

“On January 13, 2009, [Hamoud Saleh] Al-Amri was arrested for discussing his Christian faith on his blog,” it explained. “The case received international attention and advocacy groups such as the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) campaigned for Al-Amri’s release.”

“On January 29, 2009, Sabri Bogday, a Turkish barber, returned to Turkey after the King [of Saudi Arabia] pardoned him,” the government report also outlined. “On March 31, 2008, Bogday was sentenced to death after two men reported to authorities that he blasphemed God and the Prophet Muhammad in his barber shop. On May 1, 2008, an appellate court upheld his conviction of blasphemy, necessitating the pardon.”

“On August 12, 2008, Okhdood.com and Gulfnews.com reported that a member of the CPVPV in the Eastern Province murdered his sister after confirming she had converted to Christianity,” it continued. “She had reportedly revealed the story of her conversion on a website posting. The story was picked up and widely reported by other Internet news outlets, some of which provided additional detail, including that she wrote about her family’s hostility toward her after heated discussions about her new faith.”

Despite the consequences, a number of Muslims are receiving the gospel nonetheless.

“[A] small but growing number of Muslims are coming to Christ and sharing their faith on the internet and satellite TV,” Open Doors USA states.

“[T]he Church flourishes under persecution, and the body of underground believers in Saudi Arabia is no exception,” adds Prayercast. “No one is beyond the reach of God’s hand; pray for the Saudis to have the courage to take hold of it.”

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Watch: Simple Math Destroys Obama’s Claim That “Islam Teaches Peace.”

"The myth of the tiny radical Muslim minority is just that – it’s a myth."


[Source: Western Journalism] In a new video, Truth Revolt’s Ben Shapiro took on the popular leftist talking point that radicals make up a tiny fraction of the overall Islamic population. Citing recent comments by Barack Obama and “horrifyingly mediocre actor” Ben Affleck, Shapiro used surveys from many of the nations with a large Muslim population to debunk such claims.

He conceded that other faiths, including Judaism and Christianity, hold certain violent texts sacred, though he made one unavoidable distinction.

“Believers in those particular texts are not currently ramming airlines into towers or beheading journalists or mutilating female genitalia,” he explained.

While actively violent jihadists are clearly a minority within the faith, Shapiro noted that far too many support such radical ideals.

“Almost 50 percent of Indonesians actually support strict sharia law, not just in Indonesia but in a lot of countries,” he said of the predominantly Muslim nation, “and 70 percent blame the United States, Israel, or somebody else for 9/11.”

Using those statistics, he estimated 143 million radical Muslims live within that country.

By determining how many Muslims in other nations hold a similar ideology, including a belief in honor killings or terror attacks, Shapiro concluded more than 800 million practitioners of the faith would qualify as extremists. That number includes nearly 500,000 living within the U.S.

“That’s not a minority,” he said, “that’s now a majority. The myth of the tiny radical Muslim minority is just that – it’s a myth. And unfortunately it’s a myth that’s going to get a lot of civilized people killed.”

Friday, October 31, 2014

The Story of Martin Baani: the Iraqi seminarian who will not leave his people

No courage can be found, except in the Church of Christ - the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church of Christ. May kaanib ba ang Iglesia Ni Cristo® sa Iraq? Kung OFW na INC 'yan, sigurado ko nagpatulong na sa gobyerno ng Pilipinas para iligtas! -CD2000

By John Pontifex

Erbil, Iraq, (CNS/Aid to the Church in Need).- Bombs are falling and the sound of the explosion is sending shock and fear into the hearts of the people. Amid the sound of crying and frenzied activity, people pack up what belongings they can carry and make off into the night.

In the midst of it all, on the night of Aug. 6, stands Martin Baani, a 24-year-old seminarian. It’s dawning on him that this is Karamlesh’s last stand.

For 1,800 years, Christianity has had a home in the hearts and minds of the people of this town so full of antiquity. Now that era is about to be brought to a calamitous end; Islamic State are advancing.

Martin’s mobile phone rings: a friend stammers out the news that the nearby town of Telkaif has fallen to “Da’ash” – the Arabic name for Islamic State. Karamlesh would surely be next.

Martin dashes out of his aunt’s house, where he is staying, and heads for the nearby St Addai’s Church. He takes the Blessed Sacrament, a bundle of official papers, and walks out of the church. Outside a car awaits – his parish priest, Father Thabet, and three other priests are inside.

Martin gets in and the car speeds off. They leave Karamlesh and the last remnants of the village’s Christian presence go with them.

Speaking to Martin in the calm of St. Peter’s Seminary, Ankawa – a suburb of the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil – it is difficult to imagine he is describing anything except a bad dream. But there is nothing dreamy in Martin’s expression. “Until the very last minute, the Peshmerga were telling us it was safe.”

“But then we heard that they were setting up big guns on St Barbara’s Hill (on the edge of the village) and we knew then the situation had become very dangerous.”

Taking stock of that terrible night, Martin’s confidence is bolstered by the presence of 27 other seminarians at St. Peter’s, many with their own stories of escape from the clutches of the Islamic militants.

Martin and his fellow students for the priesthood know that the future is bleak as regards Christianity in Iraq. A community of 1.5 million Christians before 2003 has dwindled to less than 300,000. And of those who remain, more than a third are displaced. Many, if not most, want a new life in a new country.

Martin, however, is not one of them. “I could easily go,” he explains calmly. “My family now live in California. I already have been given a visa to go to America and visit them.”

“But I want to stay. I don’t want to run away from the problem.”

Martin has already made the choice that marks out the priests who have decided to stay in Iraq: his vocation is to serve the people, come what may.

“We must stand up for our rights; we must not be afraid,” he explains.

Describing in detail the emergency relief work that has occupied so much of his time, it is plain to see that he feels his place is to be with the people.

Martin is already a subdeacon. Now in his final year of theology, ordination to the priesthood is but a few months away.

“Thank you for your prayers,” says Martin, as I take my leave of him. “We count on your support.”


John Pontifex is a senior journalist for Aid to the Church in Need, an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Indonesian president says Islamic State 'embarrassing' Muslims-Yahoo!News

We are not sure if the views of Indonesia's President is shared by Muslims in the Middle East. Thanks to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his bold stand against Muslim Extremists now trying to divide the world.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono salutes during a
ceremony for the 69th Indonesian Independence day at the presidential
palace in Jakarta on August 17, 2014 -Source: AFP
Yahoo!News - The president of the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, Indonesia, on Thursday called the actions of Islamic State militants "embarrassing" to the religion and urged Islamic leaders to unite in tackling extremism.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the scale of the slaughter wrought by the extremists in overrunning large swathes of Iraq and Syria and the level of violence being used was appalling.

"It is shocking. It is becoming out of control," he said in an interview with The Australian, a day after IS released a video showing a masked militant beheading US reporter James Foley, provoking worldwide revulsion.

"We do not tolerate it, we forbid ISIS in Indonesia," he added, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as IS was formerly known.

"Indonesia is not an Islamic state. We respect all religions."

He urged international leaders to work together to combat radicalisation.

"This is a new wake-up call to international leaders all over the world, including Islamic leaders," he said, adding that the actions of IS were not only "embarrassing" to Islam but "humiliating", the newspaper reported.

Monday, August 4, 2014

"Why Islam is Worse Than Nazism" by Serkan Engin a Turkish Sunni Muslim Poet

Note from Robert Spencer author of JihadWatch: When Serkan Engin sent me this piece and asked me to publish it, I asked him if this could endanger him in Turkey. He responded, “I am ready to die.” I certainly hope that he encounters no difficulty as a result of making these public statements; what happens to him now will be a test of the health of the freedom of speech and Kemalist secularism in rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey. It is certainly not possible to say such things in the U.S. today without charges of “racism” and “bigotry,” without any discussion of whether there are Islamic texts and teachings that justify violence and hatred: the question cannot even be asked.

It should also be noted that I do not agree with Serkan Engin’s call for Islam to be outlawed. In the U.S., at least (to say nothing of Turkey or elsewhere), we do not outlaw ideas, and do not employ Thought Police. The criminalizing of thought is a hallmark of the totalitarian state. Even at the height of the Cold War, Communism was not outlawed. Once a people grants to the government the power to declare certain ideas illegal, that power can be turned against good ideas, to the detriment of the people. What needs to be done in response to jihad violence and Islamic supremacism today is an aggressive prosecution of any and all actions dedicated to subverting the republic; that is, however, not being done.

In any case, I may not agree with everything Serkan Engin says, but I will defend to the death his right to speak his mind. That is the fundamental principle of the freedom of speech, and the indispensable foundation of any free society. It is rapidly being lost.

Why Islam is Worse Than Nazism
by Serkan Engin

I am an atheist author and poet, who had lived as a Sunni Muslim for 23 years from birth, and I am still living in a Muslim country, Turkey. Also, my parents and all of my relatives are still Muslim. So, my critics about Islam can be easily consider this an inside view.

I know that the title of this essay seems assertive, but I will explain the rightness of this title step-by-step in this essay.

First of all, you have to learn about Islam that if you are an “outsider”, a non-Muslim, for example, a Christian, an atheist, a Buddhist, a Jew or whatever else, all Muslims have the “right” of killing and raping you, grabbing all your properties, your country, land, money and anything else. They take this “right” from the book of their belief, the Quran. In other words, they take this “right” from their belief’s core, the theology of Islam.

Here are some examples of this in verses from Quran.

This verse of Quran is about “all non-Muslims”, all “heretics”! — Christians, Buddhists, atheists, Jews, etc. — describing them “who wage war against Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad)”

Surat Al-Ma’idah (5.33)

“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.”

And this verse of the Quran is about the order to killing the humans who left Islam, the apostates:
Surat An-Nisa’ (4.89)

“They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.”

Look at the current situation in Syria. How can Islamist terrorists slaughter Alawite people or rape Christian women so easily? Because they take this “right” from their belief and they believe that they will go to the heaven because of these vandalistic actions against “outsiders”, who are out of Islam, who don’t believe the same religious tenets — in other words, those who are the “heretics” according to their belief. Some Muslims say, “But they are not the real Muslims.” That is a big lie; that is the exact form of real Islam, because these vandalistic actions are in accord with the orders of Quran.
You have heard many times that “Islam is a tolerant religion”. That is the biggest lie that you can hear all over the World, and this lie is used as a mask to hide the terrible face of Islam. There is NO difference between Islam and Islamism. This is the main error that the modern world make about Islam. There are not different forms as Islam and Islamism, they are the same thing, and they have the same content. This separation is just only an illusion, and it is used by Muslims to hide the brutal, hateful, oppressive,murderous, genocidal face of Islam.

Islamic theology is based on the verses of the Quran and Hadith. Hadiths are the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and all Muslims must follow these words and actions in addition to the orders of Quran. For example, you have to defecate as Muhammad did, and you have to clean yourself as he did, or you can rape and enslave a “heretic” woman in a war as a sex slave as Muhammad did, or you can torture your enemy in a war to learn the place of his hidden money, as Muhammad did.

You “must” cut the hand of a thief as Muhammad did, not give him any prison sentence as do the modern laws.

You must stone a woman to death as Muhammad did, because she had sex outside of the rules of Islam (but you must only whip her partner a hundred times). If you are a Muslim, you can never set them free while considering that their sexual actions are about their own personal relations and freedom, in accord with modern laws. You must definitely apply the punishments of Muhammad such as stoning the woman to the death and whipping her partner a hundred times if you want to be a good Muslim.

You must kill the man who left the belief of Islam, as Muhammad did. You can’t say “This is his own choice and he has the freedom of thought and belief”, because it is an order of the Quran that you “must” kill the persons who were Muslim before and then left the Islamic religion.

You must kill all homosexuals according to the orders of Islam. No Muslims can say according to Islam that their sexual orientation is their own natural right, in accord with the human rights norms of our age.

You have the “right” to marry a little girl at 9 years old, as Muhammad did. In other words, you can rape a little child legally in Islam and make her a sex slave, and also a domestic slave till the end of her life.

You can lie alongside of your dead wife for 6 hours, as Muhammad did. In other words, you can rape the dead body of your wife for 6 hours after her death.

Here is Islam…Here is the “tolerant religion”…Here is the right way to the heaven…Here are the orders of Allah…Here are the actions of Muhammad…

You can easily see how civilized the Muslim countries of the world are because of Islam, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, Sudan and the others. You can see how much they have contributed to the history of philosophy, the history of art, and the history of science of the whole world. You can see how respectful they are to human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, the freedom of expression and thought, the freedom of the press, the freedom of belief, etc.

The first genocide wave of 20th century, the Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide and the Pontic Greek Genocide, was perpetrated by Turkish and Kurdish people of the Ottoman Empire and the new Turkish Republic, getting motivation from the “rights” that they had because of Islam: the “rights” of killing and raping the non-Muslims, enslaving their women and little girls as sex slaves and also domestic slaves, and grabbing their money, houses and lands. However, “The Committee of Union and Progress” (CUP) (Turkish: İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) was based on Turkish nationalism; they used Turkish and Kurdish people easily for these genocides because of the Islamic religion’s content about non-Muslims. All the Turkish and Kurdish Muslims believed that they would go to the heaven if they killed more non-Muslims, as do today’s Islamist terrorists.

The owners of the second genocide wave of 20th century were Nazis, as you know. They 
took the genocides of the Turks as a sample. It is know that Adolf Hitler said to his military commanders, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?,” while they were talking about the reaction of the world about the genocides that they were planning to perpetrate.
Nazism was considered a legal and respectable ideology at the beginning of the 1930s, and then the world saw how dangerous Nazism was. Millions of people died because of Nazism, and today it is illegal to support Nazism in any civilized country. You can never make propaganda about Nazism legally. Today, Nazism is not considered as a genuine thought alternative, and it is not included in the freedom of thought and expression.

As I have detailed above, Islam is against the human rights norms of our age, and it has more dangerous content than Nazism. Islam is not a belief alternative, it is just a crime against humanity, and any crime shouldn’t have freedom in our modern world. So, Islam must be declared illegal all over the world, as is Nazism, because of its vandal content and commands that are against human rights. All actions about Islam must be forbidden and the propagandists of Islam must be judged because of instigating to the crimes of murder, rape, grab and crimes against humanity. Otherwise, the world will meet with a big tragedy when the Islamists will get more power, as the world suffered because of Nazism.

A socialist Laz poet from Turkey, Serkan Engin was born in 1975 in Izmit, Turkey. His poems have been published in English in The Tower Journal, Poetry’z Own, Belleville Park Pages, Far Enough East, Spilt Infinitive Lit Magazine, Empty Mirror, The Writer’s Drawer, Poetry Super Highway, Miracle E-zine, Industry Night Lit Magazine, Open Road Review, Shot Glass Journal, The Criterion and Mediterranean Poetry. Some of his poems appeared in Japanese in the leading Japanese philosophy and poetry journal Shi to Shisou.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Conversion Stories: A Comparison

Aguilar with his 16 year old girlfriend (Photo source: PinoyStop.com)
Muslim have the right to rejoiced at one convert especially if the convert is a high profiled one. But behind the conversion sometimes their reasons are unthinkable to some. Some wants to legally marry more than one (maximum 4 wives according to Islamic Law), and some wants to be legally married to minors which is allowed in Shariah (Islamic Law). Read it for yourself:  "Freddie Aguilar converts to Islam, marries 16-year-old girlfriend "

Freddie Aguilar's conversion story with this story: "A Muslim’s Remarkable Conversion to Catholicism"

Be not afraid to follow Jesus Christ!  Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but not the spirit (Mt. 10:28, Lk. 12:4)! Your reward is not carnal, but spiritual joy and peace.

Welcome Home!

Friday, February 7, 2014

Christian girl abducted, converted and forced to marry a Muslim in Lahore

by Jibran Khan
The family of Samariya Nadeem staged a protest this morning in front of the city's press club. For the past three weeks, their 16-year-old daughter has been in the hands of a wealthy landowner. As police and the authorities fail to free her, the Catholic Church calls for justice on the family's behalf. But for Muslim cleric, it is "not illegal to abduct and convert non-Muslims".

Lahore (AsiaNews) - After a Pakistani Christian girl from Lahore (Punjab) was abducted by a Muslim landowner, she was forced to marry him after conversion to Islam. Her family reacted in a public protest, demanding justice from civil authorities.

Police and the courts have failed so far to act and return the girl to her parents. The local Catholic Church has instead backed the family, condemning the "widespread practice" of kidnapping young Christian and Hindu women to marry them forcibly to Muslims and reduce them to a "state of slavery".

The latest episode involves a 16-year-old girl, Samariya Nadeem (Masih), who was abducted and forcibly married to a rich landowner.

The abduction took place 22 days ago in Lahore's 270-TDA Layyah District when the young woman was on her way to school.

The family filed a complaint (First Information Report 14/14, under Section 365 B of the Penal Code) with the police for the abduction reporting that Samariya was taken against her will and forced to marry the man.

So far, police have failed to pursue any legal action against the local wealthy Muslim landowner who abducted the girl because of the influence he wields. Police investigators were also unable to talk to the bruised and terrified victim.

Anonymous police sources confirmed that the girl was "abducted" and forced to marry. However, an Islamic cleric involved in the affair said that it was "not illegal to abduct and convert non-Muslims".

This morning, the family organised a protest rally in front of the Lahore Press Club. Under Pakistani law, no one underage can be married without parental consent.

Civil society groups and human rights activists have appealed to Punjab's chief minister to take action and return Samariya to her parents and bring her abductor to justice.

Kidnapping and forced marriage have become a major issue in Pakistan, especially in southern Punjab and in the interior of Sindh province.

This is "very common in the region," said Fr Haroon James, a priest and activist in Lahore. Young women and girls "are forcefully converted and married to influential landlords who keep them as slaves."

Unfortunately, people seem to be increasingly "hopeless". For this reason, the Church has spoken out in the case, "demanding justice for her and the family." Yet, "Despite the fact that a FIR has been registered, the authorities have failed to act and protect the vulnerable," the priest added.

With a population of more than 180 million people (97 per cent Muslim), Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, the second largest Muslim nation after Indonesia.

About 80 per cent of Muslims are Sunni, whilst Shias are 20 per cent. Hindus are 1.85 per cent, followed by Christians (1.6 per cent) and Sikhs (0.04 per cent).

Violence against ethnic and religious minorities is commonplace across the country, with Shia Muslims and Christians as the main target, with things getting worse.

Dozens incidents of violence have occurred in recent years, against individuals or entire communities, like in Gojra in 2009 or Joseph Colony in Lahore in March 2013, often perpetrated under the pretext of the country's blasphemy laws.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

In Cairo the Lecture of Regensburg Is Relevant Again

Never has a pope been so clear and courageous in unveiling the roots of violence in Islam, before Benedict XVI. And not afterward, either. Two obligatory rereadings, to decipher the Egyptian crisis

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August 20, 2013 – In a few days many dozens of churches, convents, homes of Christians in Egypt have been attacked or burned. A tragedy within the tragedy, after the coup d'état that has plunged the nation of the Nile into a civil war with hundreds if not thousands of victims.

In covering the news of the numerous appeals for the cessation of violence, “L'Osservatore Romano” of August 18 did not, however, succeed in listing among these invocations even one from the Muslim world.

This public silence of the Islamic spiritual guides does not come as a surprise. It accompanies almost every act of political violence that sees Muslims in action, in one or another region of the globe.

It is a silence that is not explained by calculations of timeliness alone, or by the fear of retaliation. Nor by the fact alone that today in Egypt the greatest clash is between opposing Muslim factions, both of them determined to assert with force the precepts of Islam: because it is not only the Muslim Brotherhood of the deposed president Mohamed Morsi that has a conception of the political struggle as jihad, as holy war, but this is also held by its adversary, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the general placed at the head of the armed forces by Morsi himself because he was believed to be the most faithful Islamist of all.

In order to understand the ultimate root of the silence of Muslim spiritual leaders in the face of the explosion of violence of Islamic inspiration, one need do just one simple thing. It is enough to reread the initial part of the lecture given by Benedict XVI on September 12, 2006 in the aula magna of the University of Regensburg.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Non-Muslim pupils forced to eat in bathroom because of Ramadan

The act of segregation is condemned by politicians and Muslims. Our "religion does not dictate this," Muslim woman says. However, in many Islamic countries, non-Muslims are required to respect the eating ban during the period of fasting.

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies also read here) - Non-Muslim children in a Malaysian primary school were forced to have lunch in the facility's change room whilst their classmates fasted during Ramadan. Pictures of ethnic Chinese and Indian (usually Christian or Hindu) children were posted on the internet by one of the mothers, Guneswari Kelly, causing an uproar among politicians and Muslims opposed to unhygienic segregation.

On her Facebook page, Kelly Guneswari wrote that staff at the Sri Pristana School, in suburban Kuala Lumpur, told non-Muslim children to eat in the school's bathroom and not in the canteen. "Is this fair? Can [a national school] treat [non-Muslim pupils] like this" during Ramadan?

After being informed, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin ordered an investigation into the matter, saying he would take action.

School officials have not released any statement, but Jehan Bakar, a Muslim woman lawyer and mother of two, said she was "horrified" by the segregation of non-Muslim children. Our "religion does not dictate this," she insisted.

In fact Islam does not ask non-Muslims to fast or hide, but in many Islamic countries, Christians, Hindus or people of other religions are asked (and sometimes forced) not to eat in public or are not allow to eat at all during the fasting period, which runs from dawn to dusk.

In Malaysia, there are often signs of impatience towards Islamic rules that are often applied in a very restrictive way. Recently, a Chinese couple was accused of sedition for posting online a Ramadan greeting that showed them eating pork, which is forbidden in Islam.

In 2010, the principal of a secondary school in the state of Kedah accused ethnic Chinese students of being insensitive towards their Muslim classmates because they ate at school during Ramadan, telling them to "return to China" if they could not respect the culture of other ethnic groups.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Malaysian Muslims ask Vatican to recall envoy over use of “Allah”

Islamists are now the Catholic Church' nemesis in building peace among believers. Their ignorance of history is blissful.  For the information of those who don't know, Arab Christians have used the word 'allah' (الله) long way even before the advent of Islam itself.  In pre-Islamic Makkah Muhammad's father (Islam's prophet) was named 'Abdullah' (عبد الله) --'Slave of God' or 'Servant of God -- which suggests that pre-Islamic Makkah had used the same word even before Islam came to be.

BANGKOK, Thailand (RNS) The Vatican’s first envoy to Muslim-majority Malaysia should quit and go back to Rome, angry Malaysian Islamists said after the Roman Catholic cleric said Christians may use the Arabic word “Allah” to describe God.

In an escalating confrontation, dozens of Islamists marched to the Vatican’s mission in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, after prayers at a mosque on Friday (July 19), and presented a 670-word memorandum demanding his recall.

The troubled envoy, Archbishop Joseph Marino of Alabama, arrived in the Southeast Asian country in April.

Marino’s problems began after his interview with reporters on July 11, when he spoke about the Christian Federation of Malaysia’s controversial decision to call God “Allah,” the Arabic word for God.

“It seems to be quite logical and acceptable,” Marino said in the interview.

Some Muslims complained, and the Malaysian government summoned Marino on July 16 to discuss the issue.

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