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Belgian Priest to Stand Trial for Hatred for Citing Fears of Coming Islamic Persecution

Melkite Catholic Patriarch: Since 9/11 There's a Plot to Eliminate All Christians from Arab World

By John-Henry Westen

BRUSSELS, March 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic priest in Belgium known popularly as Père Samuel is to be brought to trial for hate crimes according to a decision reached last week by the Belgian judiciary.  According to the Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/936 ), the priest, who fled from Turkey under Islamic persecution, is being prosecuted for warning against Islamic fundamentalism.

His offending statement: "Every thoroughly islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have become a minority."

After hearing of his upcoming trial the priest, who was suspended by his bishop but nonetheless remains a popular clergyman, repeated his statement and warns against "the islamic invasion" of the West.

While that sentiment may seem bitter to some, it is a sincere conviction for many prelates coming from Islamic nations. 

In a startling statement which received very little coverage, the Patriarch of the Greek Melkite Catholic Church, stated in an interview published last October "According to me, after 11 September, there is a plot to eliminate all the Christian minorities from the Arabic world."

The Patriarch, who oversees some 20,000 Melkite Catholics in Syria, explained in an interview with the Italian magazine 30 Days, "Islam is our milieu, the context in which we live and with which we are historically associated. We have lived 1,400 years in the middle of them. We understand Islam from the inside. When I hear a verse of the Koran, it's not something foreign to me. It's an expression of the civilization to which I belong."

Regarding the 'plot' to oust Christians he stated, "Our simple existence ruins the equations whereby Arabs can't be other than Moslems, and Christians but be westerners."  If, he said, "the Middle East is cleansed of all the Arabic Christians, the Moslem Arab world and a so-called Christian Western world will be left face to face. It will be easier to provoke a clash and justify it with religion.

See the full interview in 30 Days:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=9596

See more of Pere Samuel's case from the Brussels Journal:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/936

(news tip from Spero News http://www.speroforum.com )

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