si si no no
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let your speech be, “yes, yes,” “no, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37) ● November 2006

THE
BENEFIT
OF THE
DOUBT

Reprint #72

A while ago, a reader wrote to Courrier de Rome:

Dear Courrier de Rome:
I read with great interest your article of September last about our new
Pontiff. At last! Indeed, the recommendation to pray for the Holy Father
and to show filial respect, as distinguished from the obedience commonly
invoked, are well taken, for indeed these are due him a priori and in every
instance, even before we see what he says and what he does....
...It seems to me that the judgment made about the election should
be wider than the judgment made about the person elected, about whom
we should know the interesting aspects—such as his recognition of the
crisis in the Church and his critiques of the liturgical reform—as well as his
limitations, in particular his non-Thomistic formation. And I implore the
newly elected pope, who has asserted that he desires to apply Vatican II in
faithful continuity with Tradition, to emphasize its continuity with acts of the
magisterium such as Quanta Cura with its Syllabus of Errors, Aeterni Patris (on
the necessity of Thomistic philosophy), Mortalium Animos (against “common
way” ecumenism), and Humani Generis (against the “new theology”).
It is also necessary to consider the direction of the election. In fact,
Cardinal Ratzinger was elected by three or four “more or less conservative”
cardinals against the “progressives.” With all the limits of the moderates
(the two factions of the conclave were not progressives and traditionalists,
(continued on p.20)

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(continued from p.19)

but rather progressives and moderates, both of which have liberal Catholicism as their frame of
reference), the bloc that supported Cardinal Ratzinger...concentrated on themes such as recognition
of the grave problems of the present hour even in the bosom of the Church, desire for greater
attention towards doctrine, and the will to prevent any further evolution in a progressive direction....
If we consider that those who elected Benedict XVI were all made cardinals on the criterion of
their alignment with the new ecclesial direction, the choice of a candidate whom they knew would
meet with strong disapprobation from the world and the Church’s numerous enemies is humanly
surprising. These are some considerations that deserve to be met with joy; they give us reason
to hope that the diabolical blindness that has weighed on the human element of the Church and
paralyzed it since 1960 has begun to lose its grip.
For understanding the reality, it is also necessary to take into account the considerable effect
that external conditions have upon the Pontiff himself. That is why, on the one hand, I do not know
what the real significance of his initial acts is. Cardinal Siri asserted that the discourse outlining
the program of Pope John Paul I (Albano Luciani) was in reality the work of the Secretary of State,
Cardinal Villot; Paul VI, during his coronation ceremony, declared that he wanted to defend
the holy Church against errors, which is not what we observed subsequently (it is clear that he
wanted to reassure the “conservatives,” defeated during the conclave); Pope Roncalli did not seem
revolutionary during the first years... And it is likely that the reigning Pontiff was also elected thanks
to some agreements. On the other hand, we think of the old tactic of “the carrot and the stick.” I
was struck by the way some progressives, who had feared this election, hastened to try to gain the
ascendancy with the newly elected pope by protests of solidarity. And I was not surprised by the
blackmail perpetrated at Cologne by the Franco-German episcopate: if he makes concessions to the
traditionalists, then they, the standard-bearers of progressivism, will create a real schism. And what
Ratzinger himself said during the enthronement Mass is significant: “Pray for me that I do not flee
before the wolves....”
What will the pontificate of S.S. Benedict XVI be like? The man Ratzinger, considered by many
as a “restorer,” is in reality an oscillating centrist: where will the pendulum stop? It will probably
take some time to tell. At present, he seems to be a little less bad than his predecessor: fewer trips,
more sobriety, more time devoted to governing the Church; but, as was foreseeable, he still has not
broken with the fundamental evils, and limits himself to a moderate reading of Wojtylism.The name
he chose also leads one to think of a moderate liberal orientation. In the best of cases, he will be a
“transition pope” like John XXIII, but in the opposite direction, and transition implies oscillations...
There are some elements that incline us to prudent expectations, and there are unknowns. I
appreciated the comment of H.E. Bishop Fellay: when Benedict XVI finds his back to the wall–and
reality is pushing him in that direction–he will come to a decision and go in the right direction. But
let us pray a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, who is “on our side,” that Pope Ratzinger, who has
read the actual Third Secret of Fatima, will not wait for the gangrene to spread before he passes
from “extreme evils” to “extreme remedies.”

Signed, S. P.
We preferred to let some time elapse before
responding to this letter, which obliges us to make an
assessment, insofar as this is possible at present, of the
new pontificate. Let us begin by remarking that...it
was permissible for us to prefer to remain silent on the
occasion of Pope John Paul II’s passing away without
thereby personally failing in our duty to pray for the
deceased pope, the pope to be elected, and the new
pope. We did not think it opportune to remind our
readers of this duty because every Catholic knows, if
only by a supernatural “sense,” that he must pray for
the Church and for the Pope, and that he must do so

20

all the more as it seems that the object of his prayers
seems to be failing, or runs the risk of failing in his
very high duties as Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.
As regards his first point, our friend will allow
us not to share his optimism in the invitation he
addresses to the Pope to emphasize the continuity
[of the post-conciliar Church] with Tradition, and
especially with Quanta Cura and the Syllabus,
Mortalium Animos, and Humani Generis.
It is not that we think that Benedict XVI does
not want to highlight this continuity; we think that
he cannot. Subjectively, this is impossible for him
ThE ANgEluS • November 2006 www.angeluspress.org

because of what our reader tactfully calls his “nonThomistic formation,” and which for our part we do
not hesitate to call his “neo-modernist deformation,”
strengthened in our judgment by what the same
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his autobiography
about the theological studies of his youth, as well as
the content of numerous of his works. Objectively,
it is impossible for him to highlight any sort of
“continuity” between the encyclicals mentioned and
the conciliar documents: the opposition between them
is such that either one continues to adhere to the first
and refuses the latter, or else embraces the latter and
abandons the first. And we have as confirmation on
this point, if any were needed, Cardinal Ratzinger’s
The Principles of Catholic Theology, in which he explicitly
calls the conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes an
anti-Syllabus, and, implicitly, an anti-Pascendi.

“the development of Catholic originality” vis-à-vis
the Protestant world, in keeping with the Council
of Trent.1 Some German bishops warned Pius XII
against the seriously negative aspects of the liturgical
movement; Pius XII wrote the Encyclical Mediator
Dei specifically to condemn the numerous errors of
the liturgical movement, errors, he wrote, “touching
Catholic faith and ascetical doctrine” (§8), and
“approximating to the errors long since condemned”
of Protestantism. A disciple of Rahner, H. Vorgrimler,
wrote that in Germany the liturgical movement
was one of the movements that arose to deliver the
Church from the yoke of “the Roman system.”2 All
these considerations do not make us pessimistic about
the intentions of the new Pope as regards the liturgy,
but simply prevent us from becoming too easily
enthusiastic.

Words and Deeds

“Prevented by Affection”

Our friend considers as one of the “interesting
aspects” of the new pontificate the recognition that
there is a crisis in the Church. But we ask him: Did
not Paul VI recognize it also? Did he not speak of the
“auto-demolition” of the Church, and of the “smoke
of Satan” in the temple of God? And what did he do
to remedy it? Did he not use his authority rather to
favor the demolishers within the Church, and did
he not, conversely, strike his faithful children who
attempted to resist this ruin. Did not John Paul II also
say that the Council must be interpreted in the light
of Tradition during the consistory of November 6,
1979, personally telling this to Archbishop Lefebvre
and thus raising many hopes? But what happened
afterwards? Did he not inaugurate a new notion of
Tradition, “living Tradition,” which allowed them to
declare the death of mere Tradition, which is not only
living but also coherent with itself such that it cannot
teach today the contrary of what it taught yesterday?

Liturgy
As for the liturgy, we know that the new Pope
seems to love the beauty and the solemnity of the
offices, and that he personally has tried to restore
to them a dignity that, with John Paul II, had
completely disappeared. We rejoice over it, but
we are nonetheless far from attributing to this fact
the importance our friend does. We know from the
Ratzinger autobiography that in his youth he adhered
to the “liturgical movement,” and however simple
and sincere this attachment might have been, we shall
keep from forgetting that the liturgical movement was
one of the “movements of aggiornamento,” having as
its goal to “be done with” the Counter-Reformation
of the Council of Trent, and to become open to the
“separated brethren,” in contradistinction to the
Marian movement, devoted, on the contrary, to

And assuredly it is a great trial when one whom thou
believest to be a prophet, a disciple of prophets, a doctor
and defender of the truth, whom thou hast folded to thy
breast with the utmost veneration and love, when such a
one of a sudden secretly and furtively brings in noxious
errors, which thou canst neither quickly detect, being held
by the prestige of former authority, nor lightly think it
right to condemn, being prevented by affection for thine
old master. (Commonitorium, X)

These words of St. Vincent of Lerins describe very
well the frame of mind about the Pope besetting many
Catholics in these sad years. Sincerely attached to the
papacy, “prevented by affection” for the person who
is, or at least who ought to be, in the highest degree
“a doctor and defender of the truth,” these Catholics
have a hard time accepting the harsh reality, and the
least glimmer of hope suffices to nourish their illusion
of a real and radical resolution of the crisis in the
Church.
We perfectly understand this mentality. But
we also understand how much any hope that is
not based on the facts of the matter is dangerous
to faith. We cannot reasonably hope if we do not
have a real motive for doing so, and we should not
cultivate illusions simply because we would like to
have reasons for hope. That would be tantamount to
rendering useless a resistance that has been ongoing
for 40 years and to accept without any rational basis
that which, with reason, we would not accept in order
to preserve the faith in its entirety, the faith without
which it is impossible to please God.
Now, if we hold to the facts of the matter, we have
heard the new Pope reaffirm at Cologne, on August
19, 2005, in his discourse on non-Catholics, the
unacceptable principles of ecumenism.3 “We all know

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there are numerous models of unity,” he affirms. But
we all know, or at least we should know, that our Lord
Jesus Christ wanted for His Church a very precise
model of unity, and that He established its principle
and foundation in the primacy of Peter:
When the divine Founder decreed that the Church be
one in faith, and in government, and in communion, He
chose Peter and his successors in whom should be the
principle and as it were center of unity.4

The First Vatican Council had already affirmed:
But, that the episcopacy itself might be one and
undivided, and that the entire multitude of the faithful
through priests closely connected with one another might
be preserved in the unity of faith and communion, placing
the blessed Peter over the other apostles He established
in him the perpetual principle and visible foundation of
both unities.5

Since this is the model of unity established by
our Lord Jesus Christ for His Church, this model of
unity must be reaffirmed with apostolic courage and
firmness before those who stray far from His one true
Church. Inversely, so-called “dialogue” constitutes a
betrayal of revealed truth and a lack of honesty and
charity towards the separated brethren.
The Pope assured the assembly:
This unity, we are convinced [is it then a subjective
opinion and not a truth of faith?], indeed subsists in the
Catholic Church....On the other hand, this unity does not
mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that
is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely
not!6

Are we then to believe that there are as many
“faiths” as there are “sects,” and that the infallible
Church was wrong when it affirmed that
there is but one way in which the unity of Christians may
be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one
true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it;
for far from that one true Church they have in the past
fallen away.7
It [this unity] does not mean uniformity in all expressions
of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in
discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in
unity.8

We could accept this if it really meant “expressions
of theology and spirituality,” of “liturgical forms” and
“discipline” that were different but totally orthodox
(as in the Catholic Eastern Churches united to
Rome). But unfortunately this is not what he means.
Consequently, what place will the countless heresies of
the Protestants and the heresies, less numerous but no
less real, of the Eastern schismatics have in this “unity
in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity”? And what
place will their refusal of the primacy of jurisdiction
(and not simply of honor) of the successor of Peter,

22

which Christ placed as the foundation of the unity
of His Church, have? Benedict XVI does not say.
And yet it is this that counts if unity is not to be an
empty word to which no reality corresponds.
More than an exchange of thoughts, an academic
exercise, it [ecumenical dialogue] is an exchange of gifts
in which the Churches and the Ecclesial Communities can
make available their own riches.9

We would simply like to know what “riches” the
schismatic and heretical communities could place at
the disposition of the Catholic Church which she does
not already possess in full.
We stop here, for the citations could go on and
on, but it should be clear to any Catholic that no one,
still less the Pope, has the right to reduce the Church
founded by the God made man to the level of the sects
that have proliferated because of the pride of men.

The December 22 Discourse
In his Christmas Address to the Roman Curia10
Benedict XVI explained what he means when he
says that he “wants to apply Vatican Council II
in faithful continuity with Tradition.” He begins
by rejecting “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and
rupture,” according to which “it would be necessary
to go courageously beyond the texts [of Vatican
II] and make room for the newness in which the
Council’s deepest intention would be expressed”
since these texts “are the result of compromises in
which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary
to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now
pointless.” But what does Benedict XVI oppose to this
“hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”? He sets
against it “the hermeneutic of reform,” that is to say,
“innovation in...continuity”: continuity of “principles”
and innovation in “practical forms” because “[b]asic
decisions [that is, the principles]...continue to be
well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied
to new contexts can change.” Pope Benedict XVI
gives the example of the conciliar Decree Dignitatis
Humanae, maintaining that the “discontinuity” or
“rupture” in the domain of “religious freedom,” which
he unequivocally calls “freedom of conscience,” is
not a substantial discontinuity or rupture because,
he says, “the principles” of the doctrine remain,
even though the “practical forms that depend on
the historical situation” have changed. But what
would these principles be that have remained intact
in Dignitatis Humanae? That the human person is
“capable of knowing the truth about God” and that
he “is bound to this knowledge,” Benedict XVI tells
us. The conciliar declaration on religious freedom
will have preserved these principles, and thus it
did not canonize “relativism”; it simply considers
“religious freedom as a need that derives from human
coexistence [society], or indeed, as an intrinsic

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consequence of the truth that cannot be externally
imposed.”
The principle thus enounced, according to which
man is “capable of knowing the truth about God,”
would require many clarifications. But this is not what
interests us. What interests us is knowing whether
these are all the “principles” of Catholic doctrine on
“religious freedom.” Let us open Leo XIII’s encyclical
Libertas, which enables us to recapitulate what a long
series of Popes have affirmed and defended against the
“modern liberties” promoted by liberalism.
The Church has always affirmed that everyone
has the duty to profess the true religion (and to seek
it when he has a doubt about the false religion he
professes):
And if it be asked which of the many conflicting
religions it is necessary to adopt, reason and the natural
law unhesitatingly tell us to practice that one which God
enjoins, and which men can easily recognize by certain
exterior notes, whereby Divine Providence has willed that
it should be distinguished, because, in a matter of such
moment, the most terrible loss would be the consequence
of error. [§20]

The Church has always affirmed that from this
duty of man towards Divine Revelation proceeds his
right to freely profess, even in public, the true religion;
and that not only individuals, but also civil societies,
being “from God,” have the duty to honor Him:
Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary
in the State, that religion must be professed which alone
is true, and which can be recognized without difficulty,
especially in Catholic States, because the marks of truth
are, as it were, engraved upon it. [§21]

The Church has always affirmed that “the need
that derives from human coexistence” [Benedict
XVI, Christmas Greetings] in no wise derives, as a
logical consequence, from the “freedom of religion,”
but rather from the tolerance of false religions, if
this tolerance proves to be necessary “for the sake
of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or
preserving some greater good” (§33). But “if, in such
circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and
this is the only legitimate reason), human law may
or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should
not approve or desire evil for its own sake,” (ibid.),
and “the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the
further is it from perfection.” Lastly, it always remains
true that “it is contrary to reason that error and truth
should have equal rights” (§34).
Moreover, if indeed “the truth cannot be
externally imposed” (the Church has never done this;
she has even forbidden Christian princes to do so
when they intended to), that in no way means that
error has the right to be freely promulgated; to not
externally impose the truth does not dispense from
the obligation to impede the diffusion of errors that
would render the search for truth and its possession
more difficult for men.
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THE ANGELUS • November 2006

Now, where are these principles to be found in
the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae and the conciliar
doctrine on “religious freedom”? For in this doctrine
of “religious freedom” no distinction is made between
true and false religions, so that, as Leo XIII said of
liberalism, they “end at last by making no apparent
distinction between truth and error, honesty and
dishonesty.”
Once this fundamental distinction has been
omitted, false religions are ascribed the “right” to be
publicly professed and propagated on a par with the
true religion, even in Catholic countries. From the
initial error, it follows that the State can have no duty
either to the true God or to the true religion, but that
it has only one duty: neutrality towards religion, and,
as liberalism teaches, “to treat the various religions
(as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them
promiscuously equal rights and privileges” (§21).
There is yet another consequence: one no longer
speaks of the tolerance of false religions; this principle
has been supplanted by “the freedom of religion”
as Benedict XVI clearly states. From this distorted
perspective, the duty of the Catholic State to impede
the diffusion of false religious doctrines has no more
basis; it is even considered as an intolerable violence
against “the freedom of religion.”
What emerges clearly is that all the Catholic
principles regarding religious liberty have been
abandoned one by one. But Benedict XVI affirms in
his speech to the Roman Curia that they have all been
maintained. He even added:
The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making
its own an essential principle of the modern State with the
Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest
patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious
of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself
(cf. Mt. 22:21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of
all time....while she prayed for the emperors, she refused
to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion
of the State.

Should we thus believe that Jesus taught what
the Roman Pontiffs call “that fatal principle of the
separation of Church and State” (Libertas, §38)? Or
that the martyrs gave their lives, not to bear witness
to the true religion, but to demand liberty for false
religions as well as for the true religion? Or that the
Church, despite the promises of her divine Founder,
for centuries strayed from her “deepest patrimony”
and only recovered it with Vatican II, accomplishing
all this with the Decree on Religious Freedom, by
“making its own an essential principle of the modern
State”–the modern State that takes no account of
either faith or revealed morality? To ask the questions
is to frame the answer.

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As regards the “external conditions” imposed
upon the new Pope, it should be observed that: no
pope is obliged in conscience to respect “agreements”
that may have influenced his election, especially when
these are bad for the Church and for souls. The new
Pope must liberate himself from being “hedged in” by
prudently choosing his collaborators (such is the secret
of every good pontificate). Will Benedict XVI do so?
And especially, is he able to distinguish between good
and bad collaborators? The trust he has placed in
personages like Walter Kasper and Bruno Forte make
us highly doubtful.
We are in perfect agreement with our reader
when he characterizes the theologian Ratzinger as
oscillating. However, he is not really a centrist: to
date, his pendulum has swung more in the direction of
the “new theology” than in the direction of Catholic
theology, and his books, which he has never retracted
and which are selling today more than ever, are the
proof. For the moment, Benedict the Pope does not
seem very different from Ratzinger the theologian,
and, having studied him for years, we did not expect
that he would be: the Lord has promised the grace
of state to his Vicar, a great grace and in certain

conditions, He also promised him infallibility; but
He never promised that He would work miracles,
and changing a man’s entire intellectual formation
would require a miracle, in our opinion. This does not
mean that the Divine assistance–at the very least that
assistance which consists in preventing irremediable
mistakes–will be lacking to the Church; nor will there
be lacking, our reader may rest assured, our prayers
for the Church and for the new Pope.
Hirpinus
Translated exclusively by Angelus Press from Courrier de Rome, May 2006,
pp.5-8.

		
1

		E. Fouilloux, “Theologico-spiritual Movements and the Council,” in On the
Eve of Vatican II (Lovanio, 1992), pp.188, 198.
2
Herbert Vorgrimler, Understanding Karl Rahner (New York, 1986).
3
Address to the Ecumenical Meeting held at the Bishop’s House during the
World Youth Days at Cologne, August 19, 2005. The English version has been
taken from the speech posted on the Vatican website.
4
Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, on the Unity of the Church, Dz. 1960.
5
Dogmatic Constitution I on the Church of Christ, Dz. 1821.
6
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Ecumenical Meeting, August 19, 2005.
7
Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, on Fostering True Religious Unity (Kansas
City: Angelus Press, 1998), §15.
8
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Ecumenical Meeting, August 19, 2005.
9
Ibid.
10
Text of the speech is taken from the English version on the Vatican website.

Enemy Islam

���������

An interview with the ���������
Bishop of Rumbek, Sudan
A reader wrote:

Dear Editor:

Sudan

24

Rumbek

...We must weep over the green light given by the ambiguity of
the Conciliar Acts to the slogan about the “three monotheisms” and of
“multiethnic and multiracial society.”
The Arabs have seized the opportunity for the planned conquest of the
Christian West through immigration ever since 1967, by subsidizing with
petrodollars the pro-abortion campaigns of the 1970’s and by organizing
the massive illegal influx of the most rigorously Islamic masses. And what
does our hierarchy do? It suppressed from the concordat [between the
Church and the Italian government] the Catholic religion as the “religion
of the State,” thereby opening the way to the construction of a mosque in
Rome itself.
The only hope we have left at present is that Italy is not one of the
nations that has lost the faith, as the prophecy of Fatima puts it, and the
recitation of the rosary in families and churches continues to be widely
practiced and propagated.

Dear Friend:

Il Giornale of May 23, 2004, published an
interview by Stefan Lorezetto with Bishop Cesare
Mazzolari, M.C.C.I., a member of the Comboni
Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus [and Bishop of the
diocese of Rumbek], in the Sudan, in a zone which
at that time had not yet fallen completely under
Muslim domination, which gave him (we do not
know if that is still the case) a certain freedom of
action and of speech.
The frankness and courage of this “frontier”
bishop are admirable, as is his insight that we would
not have so much to fear from the Muslims if we
were not such bad Christians. It is to be feared,
conversely, that Islam is the “scourge” of God, as
the Assyrians were in olden days for the chosen
people. As He did then, God finally will break the
“scourge,” but only after having used it to correct
His rebellious sons. [The interview is reproduced
below.]
“The moment of martyrdom approaches,” the
Bishop says. “I hope that the Lord will give us the
grace to endure this shedding of blood. There is a
need for purification. Many Christians will be killed
for the faith. But from the blood of martyrs will
spring a new Christendom....Either God will send us
a strong leader capable of forging a new path, or He
will permit a chastisement, a measured trial that will
lead us to wisdom. The world is blind and dumb.
We need a big electroshock.”

we are right and they are wrong. We boast of a
Christian tradition that we no longer practise in our
daily lives. The Muslims are consistent in their daily
practice and their proselytism is superior to ours.
When a Muslim teaches you to say sukrna (thank
you), he is already a missionary, for Arabic is the
language of the Koran.

And yet very many of your confreres in Italy have
agreed to the conversion of churches into mosques.

The Muslims will be the ones to convert us,
and not the other way around. Wherever they
settle, sooner or later they become the dominant
political force. The Italians have a very naive notion
of hospitality. They will quickly perceive that the
Muslims have taken advantage of their kindness, by
bringing in ten times as many people as were agreed
upon. They are much slier than we. They demolish
my schools, and you, you open wide your church
doors to them. If someone is a thief, do not give him
a room in your apartment.

Is Sharia [Koranic law] in full force in the Sudan?

The fundamentalist government maintains
that it will only be applied to Muslims. We don’t
know what will happen to a Christian accused of
something since there is no right to self-defense.

Do you convert many Muslims?

Roberto Hamza Piccardo, secretary of the
Union of Muslim Communities in Italy, tells me
that in the Sudan, the flagellations are only
symbolic, because “the flogger holds the Koran
under his arm so as to lighten the lashes.”

Are there Catholics who embrace Islam?

Piccardo tells me that certain articles of
Sharia law, such as cutting off a hand,
represent “very rare cruelties committed
by local bosses who torment poor folk.”

Absolutely not. To approach a Muslim would
mean sentencing him to death. Those who
spontaneously convert are subsequently forced
to flee. But they are caught and punished even a
thousand miles away.
Yes, unfortunately. At least three million persons
have migrated toward the north, pushed by famine,
and they have had to pronounce the shahada, the
[Muslim] public profession of faith in order to obtain
work. The converts are marked with a red-hot
iron. They are branded on their side, like cattle, to
distinguish them from infidels.

Is the the God of the Christians
the Allah of the Muslims?

No! Where is the notion of the Trinity? The
greatest of prophets [for the Muslims] is certainly
not Jesus Christ [and for them, Christ is not God].

Do those who speak of a
clash of civilizations exaggerate?

No. And we are just at the beginning. The
Church...is only now beginning to recognize
Islam’s challenge....What is at issue is not that
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • November 2006

I know the man. If you begin to listen to him,
he’ll tell you a thousand more lies like that one.

That is not true. It is the State that rigorously
applies Koranic law, which cuts off the hands and
feet even of Muslims, and which arrests people
without proof.

He also told me that the leader Hassen El Turabi,
“an eminent jurist,” is against the application
of capital punishment to apostates, that is
to say, to Muslims who become infidels,
contrary to what the Koran prescribes.

El Turabi is the sliest person in the world. He is
very intelligent; he is a lawyer; he speaks English
better than the English and French better than the

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THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

Are you afraid?
French. He has a forked tongue. I’ll give you a
specific example: in the English-language version of
the Sudan constitution, it is affirmed that the religion
of the State is Islam, and that the other religions are
tolerated. In the Arabic-language version, on the
contrary, the line about tolerance does not appear.

But in November of last year [2003], El Turabi
went to pay his respects to Gabriel Cardinal Zubeir
Wako, Archbishop of Khartoum, the first Sudanese
cardinal. As for you, after 23 years spent in the
Sudan, no one has touched a hair of your head.

Haven’t you noticed though that all my hair
has turned white? The greatest punishment the
Arabs know how to inflict is oppression–deceit in
their relations with strangers. If he can trick you,
he does it wholeheartedly. He brags of his capacity
to set a snare for you; being called a liar is for him
a compliment. El Turabi leads someone like Bush
around by the nose where and when he wants to,
to say the least. As for me, rather than be ridiculed
and played for a fool, I prefer to receive a slap. The
Muslims fill you with fear; they hold you in a state of
permanent insecurity. It is a psychological torment
worse than torture.

Does slavery exist in the Sudan?

They swear that it does not. They even went
to Geneva to say so. Yet my missions are full of
ex-slaves. In 1990, I personally redeemed 150, by
paying less for them than for a pure-bred dog: $50
for women, $100 for men. I did not do it after that,
because I realized that it could become a vicious
circle. They use them as shepherds or they place
them in service in wealthy families in Khartoum.
They are obliged to attend Muslim schools.

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I would not be doing the work I do if I were
afraid. When someone is afraid, he cannot survive.
When I realize that one of my priests is afraid, I
remove him from the mission. It is a contagious
disease. If one day I become afraid, I pray that God
will take me.

Will you return to Italy?

My country is the Sudan. I have promised my
faithful that I will not abandon them, even when I’m
dead. They already know where they should bury
me.

Is there something that our
readers and I can do for you, Father?
Pray very much.

Translated exclusively for Angelus Press from Courrier de Rome, January
2006, pp.7-8.

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