Islamized Italy: Catholic Diocese Urges Faithful to Participate in Muslim Prayers During Ramadan

By Robert Spencer

Another Ramadan is upon us, and as is always the case, the eager-to-be-fooled infidels are out in force. A Catholic diocese in Italy has just called upon priests and laypeople to seek out opportunities to participate in Ramadan observances, as a gesture of goodwill toward Muslims. When will Muslim leaders tell Muslims to participate in Christian worship to show friendship with Christians? Don’t hold your breath.

The Catholic Herald reported Friday that the Italian diocese of Bergamo is “instructing its priests to participate in Islamic rituals, citing Pope Francis’ directives on interreligious dialogue.” Diocesan officials issued a directive “urging priests to seek out opportunities for interreligious dialogue during the ‘holy month’ of Ramadan by inviting the faithful to join in praying with Muslims and joining in the Iftar ritual meal.”

This directive was the handiwork of Fr. Massimo Rizzi, who is the director of the diocese’s Office for Interreligious Dialogue. Fr. Rizzi is such a hip, up-to-date, Church-of-what’s-happening-now type of priest that he even went so far as to give this letter the date 23 Sha’ban 1445. He wasn’t trying to fool anyone into thinking that the directive had been written nearly six hundred years ago; the date he gave was that of last Monday according to the Islamic calendar.

Given Fr. Rizzi’s clearly firm commitment to multiculti pieties, it’s no surprise that is directive is also heavily larded with today’s fashionable cant and blather. He asks Catholics to pray for “a continuous realization of all the dimensions that make up humanity desired by the Creator,” as well as for “continuous growth in the dialogue between peoples and different faiths.”

Yeah, we gotta keep that dialogue growing. Fr. Rizzi was, however, too busy racing to the multicultural mountaintop to take the time to explain that dialogue’s effects. Why do so few Christians in the West speak out about the rampant persecution of Christians in the Islamic world? Because they don’t want to harm the “dialogue.” 

Yet this “dialogue” has not saved one single Christian from being murdered. Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Mass., said it on Feb. 8, 2013, as he was suppressing a planned talk (by me) at a Catholic conference on that persecution: “Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.”

Remember also that Mohamed Atta, about the plane he had hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, told passengers over the intercom: “Stay quiet and you’ll be okay.” The Catholic Church appears to have adopted that statement as its policy regarding Muslim persecution of Christians.

Now we have Catholics being urged to take part in Ramadan rituals and no doubt to stay quiet about jihad violence and persecution of Christians while they’re doing so, so that they’ll be okay. Yet the idea of Ramadan providing a possibility of outreach to Muslims is a tragicomic display of the failures and inherent limitations of the “dialogue” imperative.

This is because the highest form of service to Allah, according to Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers. Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks.  

In April 2022, the Palestinian Authority’s Supreme Sharia Judge, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, declared that “Ramadan is not a month of laziness but rather a month of activity, of effort, and of hard work, and as it also was in the life of the Prophet, a month of jihad, conquest, and victory.” The jihad he had in mind was violence against unbelievers, as a Muslim cleric in India, Maulana Bashir Ahmad Khaki, made clear in 2018: “Ramadan is the pious month of ‘Jihad-o-Qital’ (Jihad and killing). Those who attain martyrdom while waging Jihad, doors of heaven remain open.” In 2012, a jihad group in Bulgaria explained that “Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators.” 

The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naïve and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam.

It was even worse last year, when the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue issued a message to Muslims for Ramadan, entitled “Christians and Muslims: Promoters of Love and Friendship.” In it, the Vatican claimed that Ramadan is important not just for Muslims, but for Christians as well. Maybe the Vatican’s top dogs were seeing into the future when the bitter fruit of their short-sightedness, cowardice, and refusal to accept unpopular truths would be all too evident. By then, Ramadan will indeed be very, very important for those who once called themselves Christians.

This article has been cross-posted with permission from Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 27 books, including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, and The Critical Qur’an. His latest book is Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here. For media inquiries, contact communications@pjmedia.com.