Magdi Allam made international news when he converted from his Muslim faith to Catholicism on Easter, 2008, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with Pope Benedict XVI officiating.
Allam now says that he is leaving Catholicism, but will always remain a Christian. He is upset that the Catholic Church has stood by for the “Islamization” of Europe, which he sees as an affront to Western civilization, and the “fundamental rights of the person”. He points to the persecution of Christians in the Muslim countries, and explains that a practice of appeasement will not be effective in stopping the maltreatment.
“I am convinced,” Allam stated, “that Islam is an ideology inherently violent as it has been historically conflictual inside and warlike outside.”
Pharmer does not see all Muslims as being cut from the same cloth, though Allam is certainly correct about the more extreme Islamic groups. The main difficulty with Islam occurs when it is practiced as a political system, rather than as a religion. There are those who hold that Islam is inherently a political system.
There are some additional forces driving people from the Catholic Church. In the U.S. the Church has been very weak in speaking up for the rights of the unborn, the elderly and disabled, preferring to sell them out for government funding of their charitable and educational interests. The U.S. Catholic church has also seen fit to place charitable functions and health care into the hands of a very corrupt government. After doing this, the Bishops then feigned surprise that abortion, birth control coercion, and IPAB death panels were a part of the government health care plan, brought by the most pro-abortion/infanticide president in history.
Yours truly thinks it is plausible that the Catholic leadership in the U.S. knew what was coming all along. It is observed that the nominally Catholic lawmakers who pushed this abortive health care agenda are still able to publicly partake in the Eucharist. This serves as an indication that Obamacare, and all the death and destruction it is bringing our way, might have been pre-approved by the church leadership in America.
Does it make sense, with this in mind, to follow the example of Magdi Allam? Pharmer is not taking such a step. Perhaps it makes more sense to stick with the ideals of the Catholic religion as an ethical system apart from so many current clergy and leaders who not taking it seriously.
Perhaps it also makes more sense to abstain from the Eucharist in the place of Biden, Pelosi, et al, and do penance for having allowed them to govern us.
