More From Jesuit Arabist On His Apostalic Activities

The Jesuit Arabist Paolo dall'Oglio warns that the pope has confirmed the worst fears of the Muslim world.

His views on the subject bear careful reading. As the editors of Popoli introduce his article, Dall'Oglio is "someone who has carried out years of apostolic activity in the Muslim world, and in position to understand the sensibilities and to intuit the possible repercussions and ways in which the event might be exploited". Dall'Oglio began his article (in Italian - citations are my translation),

"We hope that we are dealing with an eclipse of the sun," that is, a one-time event, and adds: The moon of urgent concern for freedom of conscience and religion has blocked the sun of charitable discretion, of respect for Muslim feelings, and of the renunciation of proselytism ... [Magdi Allam's baptism] discouraged numerous efforts to construct harmony and friendship, in the quarters of European cities as well as in the countries, for secular and peaceful Islamic-Christian coexistence.

It neutralized attempts to defuse inter-religious violence and to show how far the Church is from the neocolonialist logic of the Western hegemonic powers, and how a great majority of Muslims are opposed to the logic of hostile confrontation ... Before the world, and on the occasion of his baptism,

Magdi Allam has declared his intent to affirm "the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom" against the "the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive". In this fashion he confirmed the Muslim impression, intentionally or not, that there is an objective strategic convergence of Christian neo-proselytism

and the blasphemous actions against the holiest realities of Islam promoted by the northern European media [ie, the satirical cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper]. In other words it is difficult to escape the impression that the sacred banner of freedom of conscience is being used by the West to introduce a Trojan Horse into Islam with the aim of causing it to disintegrate [emphasis added].

Link to the full and compelling article (here)