Vatican official unruffled by Qaddafi's call for Europe to accept Islam

August 31, 2010

While Italian politicians criticized Muammar Qaddafi for saying that Europe should embrace Islam, the secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Evangelization dismissed the Libyan leader’s remark, saying that it “lacked seriousness.”

Upon arriving in Rome on August 29, Qaddafi said that “Islam should become the religion of all Europe.” Archbishop Robert Sarah commented: “To speak of the European continent converting to Islam makes no sense, because it is the people alone who decide consciously to be Christian, Muslim or to follow other religions."

In an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica, Archbishop Sarah said that Islam is less threatening to the Christian heritage of Europe than the climate of “relativism, the lack of attention to faith, the weakness of religion, indifference to the sacred.” It is this climate of secularism, he said, that makes it possible for Islam to make inroads in Europe.

[The AFP story inaccurately identifies Archbishop Sarah as “in charge of the congregation’s overseas Catholic missions.” The Congregation for Evangelization is responsible for coordinating the work of the Church in missionary territories. As secretary, Archbishop Sarah is the second-ranking official of the Congregation, which is headed by Cardinal Ivan Dias.]

 

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Further information:

• Vatican criticises Kadhafi's Islamic Europe call (AFP)
• Italian politicians rip visiting Qaddafi's appeal for Islam (CWN, 8/30)