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Catholic bishops who are in Rome for a synod on New Evangelization have expressed concern over Islam’s growth and are worried about Christian minorities in Muslim countries, a Reuters report quoted participants’ of the synod.
One participant was quoted as saying that Islam had become the “buzzword” of the synod that ends this weekend.
“It’s no surprise that Islam has taken on such importance during this synod,” French-born Bishop Paul Desfarges, who heads the diocese of Constantine in Algeria, told journalists in Rome this week. “It’s an issue that concerns Europe.”
Christianity, with about 2 billion followers, is the world’s largest religion and Catholicism – its biggest denomination by far – makes up just over half that total.
But some estimates suggest that the 1.3 billion Muslims, four-fifths of them outside the Arab world, are growing in number much faster than Christians, whose numbers are shrinking in their European heartland.
“We need a much more developed analysis and discussion of the consequences of the Islamic presence in the Western world,” Sydney Cardinal George Pell was quoted by the Reuters report.
Kyrillos William, the Catholic Coptic bishop of Assiut, painted a stark picture of the situation facing Egypt’s large Christian minority – about 10 percent of the population – since the upheavals of the Arab Spring.
“Every day since the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power, we see new steps towards the Islamisation of the state,” he said. “Christians continue to be considered second-class citizens and many of their rights are not recognized.”
In West Africa, where Christianity and Islam are vying for new followers among the many people quitting traditional religions, bishops felt Catholicism had a double disadvantage.
“The rapid expansion of Islam and especially the spreading of fundamentalism in West Africa enormously worries the Church,” said Bishop Nicodeme Anani Barrigah-Benissan from Togo.
“It only takes one day to become Muslim but it is impossible to renounce this religion later,” he said. By contrast, he added, it takes at least three years of study for an adult to become a Catholic, and the baptized can leave at will.
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