|
Printer
Friendly Version - opens in separate window
Belgian Priest to Stand Trial for Hatred for
Citing Fears of Coming Islamic Persecution
Melkite Catholic Patriarch: Since 9/11 There's a Plot to Eliminate
All Christians from Arab World
By John-Henry Westen
BRUSSELS, March 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic priest
in Belgium known popularly as Fr. Père Samuel is to be brought to trial
for hate crimes according to a decision reached last week by the Belgian
judiciary. According to the Brussels
Journal, the priest, who fled from Turkey under Islamic persecution,
is being prosecuted for warning against Islamic fundamentalism.
His offending statement: "Every thoroughly
islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western
children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have
become a minority."
After hearing of his upcoming trial the priest, who was suspended by
his bishop but nonetheless remains a popular clergyman, repeated his
statement and warns against "the islamic invasion" of the West.
While that sentiment may seem bitter to some, it is a sincere conviction
for many prelates coming from Islamic nations.
In a startling statement which received very little coverage, the Patriarch
of the Greek Melkite Catholic Church, stated in an interview published
last October, "According to me, after 11
September, there is a plot to eliminate all the Christian minorities
from the Arabic world."
The Patriarch, who oversees some 20,000 Melkite Catholics in Syria,
explained in an interview with the Italian magazine 30 Days, "Islam
is our milieu, the context in which we live and with which we are historically
associated. We have lived 1,400 years in the middle of them. We understand
Islam from the inside. When I hear a verse of the Koran, it's not something
foreign to me. It's an expression of the civilization to which I belong."
Regarding the 'plot' to oust Christians he stated, "Our
simple existence ruins the equations whereby Arabs can't be other than
Moslems, and Christians but be westerners."
If, he said, "the Middle East is cleansed
of all the Arabic Christians, the Moslem Arab world and a so-called
Christian Western world will be left face to face. It will be easier
to provoke a clash and justify it with religion."
See the full
interview for 30 Days.
See more of Pere Samuel's case from the Brussels
Journal.
|
