Friar's beatification will test Vatican's bridges to Islam

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.

1683 - POLAND Saved Europe from Islamic JIHAD
Before they were utterly defeated by the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski, at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, those followers of Muhammad, the Turks, had laid seige to Vienna, in their attempt to "convert" and conquer Europe.
Here was their declaration and widely published prayer (sound familiar?):

Eternal God and creator of all things, and thou O Mahomet his sacred and divine prophet. We beseech thee let us not dread the Christians, who are so mean and silly to rely on a crucified god. By the power of thy right hand, so strengthen ours that we may surround this foolish people, on every side, and utterly destroy them. At length fulfill our prayers and put these miscreants into our hands, that we may establish thy throne for ever in Mecca, and sacrifice all those enemies of our most holy religion at thy tomb. Blow us with thy mighty breath like swarms of flies into their quarters, and let the eyes of these infidels bedazelled with the lustre of our moon. Consume them with thy fiery darts, and blind them with the dust which they themselves have raised. Destroy them all in thine anger. Break all their bones in pieces, and consume the flesh and blood of those who defile thy sacrifice, and hang the sacred light of circumcision on their cross. Wash them with showers of many waters, who are so stupid to worship gods they know not: and make their Christ a son to that God who ne're begot him. Hasten therefore their destruction we humbly entreat thee, and blot out their name and religion, which they glory so much in, from off the face of the earth, that they may be no more, who condemn and mock at thy law. Amen.

And, here is an excerpt from the King of Poland's letter to his Queen, after the Battle:

.....The Rarities which were found in the Prime Vizor's Tent, were no less Numerous than Strange and Surprising, as very curious Parrots, and some Birds of Paradise, with all his Banios, and Fountains, and some Ostriches, which he Chose rather to Kill, than let 'em fall Alive into our Hands; Nay his Dispair and Jealousy transported him so far, as to Destroy his very Women for the same Reason.
The whole Army Attributes the Glory of this Victory to God, and Us, and all the Princes of the Empire, with the Great Officers, as the Dukes of Bavaria and Lorrain, Prince Waldek, etc. were so far transported with my Valour and Success, that their Thanks and Praises were more Numerous, than was their Fears before; and Count Staremberg the Governour, Saluted me with the Title of his Mighty Deliverer. The Common People in my going to and from the Churches, pay'd their Veneration even to my very Garments, and made their Cry's and Acclamations reach the Sky, of Long Live the King of Poland.....
In the battle we Lost some of our Friends, as Prince Halicki, and the Treasurer of our Household. The Reverend Marinus Daviano, heapt on me his Pray'rs and Blessings, and told me he saw a White Dove fluttering o're the Army, which he look'd upon as an happy Augure of our Victory.....
Thanks be to Heaven, now the Half-Moon Triumphs no longer o'er the Cross, And 'twas thrown down from St. Stephen's Steeple in Vienna (whom it had o'retopt so long) immediately on the Defeat: Neither have the Turks any occasion to upbraid us with their Blasphemous Mahometan Proverb: Ye Christians where is Your God?

After the Battle Jan Sobieski entered Vienna in glory. The King and his Polish army had won lots of fame after their victory. Jan III Sobieski was not only looked upon as the savior of Vienna, but as a savior of the whole of Europe from the Ottoman Turks.

Thankfully the pope didn't bow to the wishes of the, "contemporary Islamic fundamentalists," in this case.

Of course the only thing that makes this "defiance" notable is that "leaders" all over the Western World have made a habit out of spitting on anyone in Western history who even might offend someone from a non-Western culture.

Let's get the facts straight here... We're talking a man who rallied his people to fight off an invading army, bent on the destruction of his nation and his religion. Why on earth should we ask the ideological descendents of the invading army for their opinion on the matter? We ought to be asking them to condemn the invasion itself, or stand guilty by association.

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