Welcome to The Conservative Cave©!Join in the discussion! Click HERE to register.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
VATICAN CITY — Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin."We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state....