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Müller warns of an "internal apostasy" in the West in the face of the expansion of Islam Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has warned that the expansion of Islam in Europe coincides with a profound identity crisis in the West, which is abandoning its Christian roots. “Muslims do not respect a weak Christianity that is ashamed of the Cross and reduces itself to a charitable organization or an environmental watchdog body,” stated the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.Müller made these remarks in a prepared address for the Tavole di Assisi 2026, a gathering held on...

St Francis and the Sultan: the making of a pious myth Jonathan Wright on a wonderful book that explains how a legendary meeting was reinterpreted over eight centuries 26 June 2009 St Francis of Assisi: His trip to Egypt became one of the centrepieces of Franciscan hagiography In September 1219, as yet another crusade was raging, Francis of Assisi popped across the military lines in order to talk with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. We have no accurate idea of why he went or what was said but, in an important sense, this doesn't much matter. Here was a legendary...

Lahore (Agenzia Fides) - To commemorate the historic event of the encounter between St. Francis with the Sultan of Egypt, AL-Kamil in the year 1219, modernize it in today's Pakistan, launching a universal message of tolerance, friendship, dialogue, common commitment for peace: in this spirit the National Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism, within the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Pakistan, organized a meeting to inaugurate the activities that, in 2019, will commemorate the event in Pakistan 800 years ago, in the name of Islamic-Christian dialogue. As Agenzia Fides learns, Franciscan Sebastian Shaw, Archbishop of Lahore and President of the...