ERIC GAILLARD-POOL/SIPA
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Today for Islam it is as if it were Christmas. The feast of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad is celebrated. IS’ Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi Al-Sharif .Hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world celebrate his birth. Whether it was just a coincidence, or the symbolic choice of a criminal plan for revenge,will need to be clarified. But of course, the Nice attack and ‘reached the peak of a very hard battle just around the sacredness of the figure of the prophet and the satire against him of the caricatures of the weekly “Charlie Hebdo“, Which led to the beheading a few days ago by an Islamist extremist of a French teacher, Samuel Paty (after the 2015 massacre).
If we do not refer to this “religious” event (the feast of the birth of the Prophet) it is certainly more complicated to understand the meaning of the new terrorist attacks in France and Saudi Arabia (again against a French target).
Nor is it possible to understand why the fact that the most serious ambush took place in the Catholic Cathedral of Nice (a city that also suffered a brutal ambush on the Promenade in 2016 with 85 deaths). A Cathedral dedicated to Notre Dame, our Lady, the mother of Jesus Christ, twin of the one in Paris devastated by a huge fire in April 2019 (so much so that for the first time since 1803 last year it was not possible to celebrate Christian Christmas).
The attack today is all the more serious as a place of worship dedicated to the Madonna was hit, which is also venerated in the Sura of Mary in the Koran.
Precisely this “religious” context left the Vatican and Pope Francis dismayed and astonished, who at the beginning of October published his third encyclical “Brothers All”, dedicated to universal brotherhood and the role that all religions must play for this purpose, starting above all from Islam.
An encyclical that arises in natural continuation with respect to the signing of the Document on human brotherhood which took place on February 4, 2019, affixed by Francis andl Great Imam dhe Egyptian Mosque of Al-Azhar as part of the Pope’s apostolic journey to the Emirates (just three months before the fire at the cathedral in Paris).
This is why the reaction of the Holy See today was not usual. As if it were a slap in the face of what the encyclical claims.
Shortly after the ambush, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, said: “It is a moment of pain, in a time of confusion. Terrorism and violence can never be accepted. L’today’s attack has sown death in a place of love and consolation, like the house of the Lord. The Pope is informed of the situation and is close to the communityat Catholic in mourning “. Then Bruni added that Francesco “prays for the victims and their loved ones, becauseIt’s the violence ceases, becauseIt’s we go back to looking at ourselves as brothers and sisters and not as enemies, becauseIt’s l’beloved French people may react united to evil with good.” Brothers and sisters, all of them, as the Encyclical claims.
After a few hours came a strong condemnation of “Wild attack”in telegram sent in the name of the pope by the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to the bishop of Nice, Msgr. AndrIt’s Marceau. The Pope “asks the Lord to give them comfort and recommends the victims to his mercy”. “By condemning these violent acts of terror in the most forceful way – continues the text – he assures his closeness to the communityat Catholic of France and to all the French people to whom it appeals so thatIt’s be united “. “By entrusting France to the protection of Our Lady, he heartily gives his apostolic blessing to all those affected by this drama”.
The dismay that Oltretevere was aggravated when it became known that the alleged attacker in Nice was one of the many migrants who landed last September in Lampedusa, the island – symbol of papal welcome for them, where Francis went for his first trip just elected and who always recurs in his thoughts and gestures.
While conservative Catholics who refer to the famous and contested lecture on violent Islam, held in Regensburg by Benedict XVI in 2012, had a good game to point out that Francis’s line does not lead anywhere, indeed, that it can cause serious damage .
“We must remember – he arguedinstead the cardinal of Bologna Matteo Zuppi – that we are all brothers and that the only way to go is that of dialogue, to isolate terrorists and so that no believer is victim of violence “, just before receiving the solidarity visit of the president of ‘UCOII (Union of Italian Islamic Communities) Yassine Lafram.
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