Father Piero Gheddo has been a missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) since 1953.  He believes that the threat presented by Islam cannot be met through economic and political measures.  Islam must be confronted at a deeper level, for its challenge is most importantly and fundamentally cultural and spiritual.

Muslims admire Western technology but disdain Western decadence, which they see reflected in abortion, suicide, homosexual “marriage”, and lack of children.  So, Muslims are convinced they can improve the West by imposing Islamic teaching.

The West should understand what the challenge is. And it is not doing this so far: it is facing terrorism through military, economic, political, juridical and diplomatic means and it never thinks about the crisis in our society that is immoral, untenable. It never says: we must change. We must return to Jesus, become aware that immorality is a central issue.
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Even Islam misses Jesus Christ. For example, the sense of forgiveness is missing. In Indonesia, in Sumatra, there are many ethnic groups. They are all Muslims but every so often there is an inter-tribal conflict. The government sends a pacification committee to stop it, made up of five authoritative people including at least two Christians (usually a Catholic and a Protestant). I asked the reason for this decision in a Muslim country. “Because you have a sense of forgiveness, of bringing peace,” the Internal Affairs Minister replied. “For us Muslims, revenge is sacred.” This is why a Christian speaking about peace is credible, but a Muslim is not.

Fr Gheddo has a home page here, but it is entirely in Italian.

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