En el martirio de un sacerdote

De mi blog colega en IBA Mystery Achievement sobre la muerte del Padre Santoro:

I asked Padovese what he believes the real motive was for Santoro’s murder. He said he doesn’t know what demons drove this young man, but said dismissing it as an isolated act is a mistake. Rising Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Christian prejudice, Padovese said, shaped the context in which the teen acted.

“It’s the anti-Christian climate that has been produced in Turkey,” Padovese said. “There’s a strong current of religious extremism, and that climate can fuel this sort of hatred. It’s passed along in families, in schools, in the newspapers.”

Padovese said that every week the Turkish bishops’ conference prepares a bulletin citing “denigrating comments” or “banalities” about Christianity that have appeared in the Turkish press.

“There’s a false image of our presence that usually goes unchallenged,” he said.

Padovese linked Santoro’s death to the broader struggles of the small Christian population in Turkey, a country often lauded as a model of moderate, Western-style Islam, and currently a candidate for membership in the European Union.

“There were several million Christians in Turkey at the fall of the Ottoman Empire,” he said. “How is it possible that in the arc of just 70 or 80 years we’ve become merely 60,000 or 70,000? The truth is that hundreds of thousands of Christians converted to Islam, taking Islamic names and hiding their identity, out of fear of persecution,” he said.

“The Christian presence is still there, I know it’s there,” Padovese said. “Many of these people know that they are Christians, or come from Christian families, but cannot say so.” (READ ALL).

Escondidos en las catacumbas, ocultando su identidad. Y dicen que es un país laico. Ejem…

Por cierto, que es posible que beatifiquen a este padre. Y el cardenal Ruini añadió:

Cardinal Ruini indicated that he feels “disdain” for the reports– which he characterized as “absurd and calumnious”– that Father Santoro used illicit means to convert Turkish people to Christianity. He said that the Italian missionary had a “rigorous conscience,” and scrupulously obeyed the laws of Turkey regarding religious activities– without ever compromising in his defense of religious freedom, “the mother of all liberties.”

Encima de que le han ASESINADO, le calumnian. Qué bien…

Tags: Turkey, Turquía, Padre Santoro, Father Santoro