Posted on 02/03/2003 6:59:58 PM PST by AncientAirs
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Jan. 18 - Father Mario D'Aviano is scheduled to be beatified on April 27 - much to the outrage of some Islamic spokesmen, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
Father D'Aviano helped organize and inspire the Christian armies that defended Vienna from a deadly siege conducted by Ottoman Turks in the 17th century.
The Capuchin friar was born in Venice in 1631. He dropped out of a Jesuit college to join the armies contesting the Turkish invasion of the Balkans. En route to the battle, while visiting a Capuchin monastery, he felt the calling to become a friar rather than a soldier.
In his ensuing career as a preacher, healer and adviser to kings and emperors, Father D'Aviano bolstered Christian resistance to invasion, acting on Pope Innocent XI's orders. He helped bring to power Jan Sobieski, the general who routed the Turks at Vienna. Father D'Aviano preached to Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike of the importance of Christian unity in the face of attack.
The Herald interpreted the decision to raise Father D'Aviano to the rank of blessed as a sign that the Vatican will not sacrifice Christian identity for the sake of interreligious dialogue.
The source of the Register article can be found here:
http://newsstore.f2.com.au/apps/newsSearch.ac?ac=search&rs=1&st=dc&ss=SMH&sy=smh&sf=all&dt=selectRange&dr=1year&so=relevance&sp=0&rc=10&pb=all_ffx&kw=d%27aviano
Yesss! I've been waiting for this!
Actually, I've heard that security is going to be enormous for this one, because while few Christians probably even know who Fr. Mario is, lots of Muslim loonies (you know, the local one-handed, one-eyed, half-brained imam) still remember.
After all, we're talking about folks like bin Laden, who are still p*o* at the fact that Islam was driven out of Spain in 1492. And they're still waiting for revenge.
Gee, sounds like he should have been around a couple of hundred years earlier when it was Byzantium under attack, and the West just tapdanced, glad to see its "rival" taken down. At least the Poles were on the ball.
By Desmond O'Grady in Rome
January 18 2003
John Paul II is likely to offend many Muslims with his decision to beatify Father Mario D'Aviano, who defended Christian Europe against invading Turks in the 17th century.
D'Aviano, a Capuchin friar, inspired Christian forces to rout the Turks, who were besieging Vienna and threatening to overrun Europe. As a champion of Europe's Christian identity, he is not appreciated by contemporary Islamic fundamentalists: security measures will be particularly rigorous when he and five other people are beatified at St Peter's on April27.
The Pope could have deferred the beatification of D'Aviano in the interests of better relations with Islam. However, he has not avoided controversial beatifications and canonisations in the past, and more contentious cases are in the pipeline, including that of Pope Pius XII, who is accused of silence over the Holocaust.
His supporters say the Pope has tried to strengthen Vatican contacts with moderate Islam. In the 1980s, in Morocco at the invitation of the king, he addressed a meeting of more than 100,000 Muslim youths.
He has visited the mosque in Damascus and, after the September11 attacks in the United States, brought Muslim leaders together in Assisi to condemn terrorism and pray for peace.
Some Catholics accuse John Paul of ignoring Christians persecuted by Muslims in Sudan, Pakistan and elsewhere, but on January13 he rejected this charge, saying he both defends Christians and wants to build bridges to Islam.
Supporters of D'Aviano's beatification portray him as a defender of Christians rather than an aggressor against Islam.
Born in the Venetian republic in 1631, he left his Jesuit college to join the republic's forces fighting Turkish invaders. On the way to the front he had to seek refuge in a Capuchin monastery, where he decided to become a Capuchin friar rather than a warrior.
He became famous as a preacher and a healer, and was appointed an adviser to the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I.
When Turkish forces that had already conquered Belgrade besieged Vienna for two months in 1683, D'Aviano, at the behest of Pope Innocent XI, joined the irresolute Leopold outside Vienna, where he strengthened the emperor's resolve, persuaded the divided and outnumbered Christian forces to choose Jan Sobinski, the Polish king, as their leader, and preached to the Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox forces on the importance of defending Christian Europe.
On the night of September 11, 1683, the Christians forced the Turks, 20,000 of whose troops had been killed, to raise the siege.
Vatican watchers interpret the decision to beatify D'Aviano as the Pope deciding that building bridges to Islam must not be at the expense of Christian identity.
The original article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Huh? Not recognized by whom, newbie?
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