{"id":575,"date":"2008-03-27T15:47:21","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T15:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is.php"},"modified":"2008-03-27T15:47:21","modified_gmt":"2008-03-27T15:47:21","slug":"vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","title":{"rendered":"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn’t Express Pope’s Views"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associated Press<\/strong>
\nVatican City – The convert from Islam who denounced what he called “inherent” violence in Islam a day after Pope Benedict XVI baptized him was not expressing the pope’s views, a Vatican spokesman said Thursday.
\nMagdi Allam, an Egyptian-born deputy editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper and frequent commentator on Islamic terrorism, “has the right to express his own ideas, which remain his personal ideas, without obviously becoming in any way the official expression of the positions of the pope or the Holy See,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the chief Vatican spokesman.
\nBenedict baptized Allam, 55, in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday night during an Easter vigil ceremony televised worldwide.
\nLombardi told Vatican Radio that “to welcome into the church a new believer obviously does not signify marrying all his ideas and views, particularly on political or social subjects.”
\nAllam sparked anger in the Muslim world when he wrote in Corriere della Sera a day after his baptism that Islam is “physiologically violent and historically conflictual.”
\nAmong those criticizing the Vatican for allowing Allam to convert in such a high-profile way was a Muslim scholar, Aref Ali Nayed, who participated in recent Vatican talks to improve Catholic-Muslim relations.
\nNayed, who directs the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan, denounced what he called “the Vatican’s deliberate and provocative act.”
\nNayed also expressed dismay that the baptism was held while “sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures.”
\nEarlier this month, Nayed participated in two days of talks at the Vatican to prepare for an audience in November between the pontiff and Muslim religious leaders and scholars.
\nLombardi said the Vatican holds Nayed in “very high esteem” and expressed satisfaction that he still was wants to pursue dialogue.
\nThe Vatican wants to mend relations with moderate Islam and has placed importance on the upcoming audience with representatives of 138 Muslim scholars who wrote to the pope last year calling for greater Muslim-Christian dialogue.
\nThat dialogue “is of extreme importance, and shouldn’t be interrupted,” Lombardi said. “It takes priority over episodes that can be the object of misunderstanding.”
\nA speech by the pope in 2006 citing a medieval emperor’s words about Islam and violence angered many in the Muslim world. Benedict later expressed regret that the speech had caused anger.
\nAllam has built his career as commentator and book author on attacking Islamic extremism and supporting Israel.
\nOn Tuesday, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano described his baptism as a papal “gesture” aimed at stressing religious freedom and harboring “no hostile intentions” toward Islam.
\nCopyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Associated Press Vatican City – The convert from Islam who denounced what he called “inherent” violence in Islam a day after Pope Benedict XVI baptized him was not expressing the pope’s views, a Vatican spokesman said Thursday. Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born deputy editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper and frequent commentator on Islamic terrorism, “has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nVatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn't Express Pope's Views<\/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\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn't Express Pope's Views\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Vatican City – The convert from Islam who denounced what he called “inherent” violence in Islam a day after Pope Benedict XVI baptized him was not expressing the pope’s views, a Vatican spokesman said Thursday. Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born deputy editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper and frequent commentator on Islamic terrorism, “has…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-27T15:47:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn't Express Pope's Views","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn't Express Pope's Views","og_description":"Associated Press Vatican City – The convert from Islam who denounced what he called “inherent” violence in Islam a day after Pope Benedict XVI baptized him was not expressing the pope’s views, a Vatican spokesman said Thursday. Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born deputy editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper and frequent commentator on Islamic terrorism, “has…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-03-27T15:47:21+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is","name":"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn't Express Pope's Views","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-03-27T15:47:21+00:00","dateModified":"2008-03-27T15:47:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/03\/vatican-convert-who-slammed-is#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vatican: Convert Who Slammed Islam Doesn’t Express Pope’s Views"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}