{"id":2646,"date":"2008-10-29T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/allam-extremism-and-terrorism-are-mature-fruits-of-islam.html"},"modified":"2008-10-29T15:09:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:09:00","slug":"allam-extremism-and-terrorism-are-mature-fruits-of-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/allam-extremism-and-terrorism-are-mature-fruits-of-islam.html","title":{"rendered":"Allam: “Extremism and terrorism” are mature fruits of Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

You probably remember the Muslim Who Became A Catholic<\/a> earlier this year, when baptized by Pope Benedict during the Easter Vigil. <\/p>\n

He hasn’t forgotten his Muslim roots, and is speaking out<\/a>: <\/p>\n

<\/a>The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter asked the pope to tell his top aide for relations with Muslims that Islam is not an intrinsically good religion and that Islamic terrorism is not the result of a minority gone astray.<\/p>\n

As the Vatican was preparing to host the first meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum Nov. 4-6, Magdi Allam, a longtime critic of the Muslim faith of his parents, issued an open letter to Pope Benedict that included criticism of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.<\/p>\n

In the letter, posted on his Web site Oct. 20, Allam said he wanted to tell the pope of his concern for “the serious religious and ethical straying that has infiltrated and spread within the heart of the church.”<\/p>\n

He told the pope that it “is vital for the common good of the Catholic Church, the general interest of Christianity and of Western civilization itself” that the pope make a pronouncement in “a clear and binding way” on the question of whether Islam is a valid religion.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church’s dialogue with Islam is based on the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (“Nostra Aetate”), which urged esteem for Muslims because “they adore the one God,” strive to follow his will, recognize Jesus as a prophet, honor his mother, Mary, “value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”<\/p>\n

The council called on Catholics and Muslims “to work sincerely for mutual understanding” and for social justice, moral values, peace and freedom.<\/p>\n

Allam told Pope Benedict he specifically objected to Cardinal Tauran telling a conference in August that Islam itself promotes peace but that “‘some believers’ have ‘betrayed their faith,'” using it as a pretext for violence.<\/p>\n

“The objective reality, I tell you with all sincerity and animated by a constructive intent, is exactly the opposite of what Cardinal Tauran imagines,” Allam told the pope. “Islamic extremism and terrorism are the mature fruit” of following “the sayings of the Quran and the thought and action of Mohammed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You probably remember the Muslim Who Became A Catholic earlier this year, when baptized by Pope Benedict during the Easter Vigil. He hasn’t forgotten his Muslim roots, and is speaking out: The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter asked the pope to tell his top aide for relations with Muslims that Islam…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-the-pope-and-bishops"],"yoast_head":"\nAllam: "Extremism and terrorism" are mature fruits of Islam - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/allam-extremism-and-terrorism-are-mature-fruits-of-islam.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Allam: "Extremism and terrorism" are mature fruits of Islam - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You probably remember the Muslim Who Became A Catholic earlier this year, when baptized by Pope Benedict during the Easter Vigil. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}