On Easter, The Muslim and me

"Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life" wrote Magdi Allam, a Muslim and deputy director of Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading newspaper, when he wrote about threats to his life after he condemned Palestinian suicide bombers in 2003.

On the vigil of Easter, Magdi Allam was baptised by Pope Benedict XVI himself and took a new baptismal name Christian on what he later called, "the most beautiful day of my life." 

He wrote in an article appeared in the Corriere della Sera that
the witness of Catholics, who “gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values,” played an important role in his conversion.

His most decisive influence he said was Benedict XVI
“who I admired and, as a Muslim, defended for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.”

I had always admired Pope John Paul II as a great and holy man,  I marveled at his courage and later at his visit to prison to forgive his assassin, but from a certain distance.    When Cardinal Ratzinger spoke to the Sacred College of Cardinals assembled in Rome for the funeral of John Paul II, I was electrified.

Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards “the maturity of Christ” as it is said in the Italian text, simplifying it a bit. More precisely, according to the Greek text, we should speak of the “measure of the fullness of Christ”, to which we are called to reach in order to be true adults in the faith. We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means “tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery” (Eph 4, 14). This description is very relevant today!

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. .... Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

I was that small boat of thought, tossed around 'by every wind of teaching' , motivated mainly by my ego and desires  until inspired by Ratzinger who became Pope Benedict XVI , I began my journey towards an 'adult and mature faith'.  The whole journey is too long to be recounted here and now, except its conclusion; I have come home to the Catholic faith and the Mother Church: I have I felt so whole. 

No where near as brave as Christian Allam, I am humbled by his journey to conversion that he recounts here.
my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.
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My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy.
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It is thanks to members of Catholic religious orders that I acquired a profoundly and essentially an ethical conception of life, in which the person created in the image and likeness of God is called to undertake a mission that inserts itself in the framework of a universal and eternal design directed toward the interior resurrection of individuals on this earth and the whole of humanity on the day of judgment, which is founded on faith in God and the primacy of values, which is based on the sense of individual responsibility and on the sense of duty toward the collective. It is in virtue of a Christian education and of the sharing of the experience of life with Catholic religious that I cultivated a profound faith in the transcendent dimension and also sought the certainty of truth in absolute and universal values.

I too want to fight against the dictatorship of relativism and its softer cousin, the culture of whatever - wherever  and whenever I can.  I too want to stand behind the Pope who offers the only strong and muscular defense of faith and reason as the basis for authentic religion and the culture of life as the basis of civilization.  I too want to uphold reason and the sacredness of life against the tide of nihilism and extremism that threatens to engulf us.  So, in my small way, I will do so.

These past three days of the Triduum, I have been drenched in music and beauty with friends and fellow worshipers and filled with gratitude  and immense joy.  I feel reborn, even  Exultent and can only point to the beautiful Easter chant I found via the Anchoress.