Vatican top dogs tried to dissuade Islamocritical Anglican from converting to Catholicism
OCT 15, 2021 5:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
“Nazir-Ali faced
biting criticism from his liberal fellow Anglican bishops for not toeing the
Church of England’s politically correct line on Islam.” He won’t find the
Church of Rome any different in that regard.
“Celeb Anglican Bishop Comes Home to Rome,” by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, October 14, 2021:
Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, former bishop of Rochester, England
— once the see of English martyr St. John Fisher — and a champion of
persecuted Christians in Islamic countries, has joined the Personal
Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
“I write to let you
know of my reception into the ordinariate established for Anglicans who wish to
be in full communion with the See of Peter,” Lord Nazir-Ali announced….
An Ordinariate priest
told Church Militant that “Lord Nazir-Ali is the most high-profile convert
from the Church of England to Rome for the last 100 years, probably since the
conversion of the intellectual giant Msgr. Ronald Knox.”
“Michael is one of
the most prodigious intellects of our time, a heroic apologist for the faith, a
bulwark against radical Islam, a laser-sharp cultural commentator, a persuasive
preacher, a passionate evangelist of the highest caliber, and a brilliant
linguist and poet,” the priest said….
Church Militant also
learned that efforts were made at the highest level of the Vatican to dissuade
72-year-old Nazir-Ali from converting to Catholicism.
“First, Nazir-Ali
isn’t the kind of convert we are looking for under the Francis pontificate.
Second, such a high-profile conversion is a setback to ecumenism. Third, Pope
Francis seems to have always indicated he believes in the validity of Anglican
orders,” a senior Argentinian-based Anglican cleric who knew Cdl. Jorge
Bergoglio in Buenos Aires told Church Militant….
The first non-white
diocesan bishop in the Church of England and an Islamic scholar who is fluent
in Urdu and Farsi, Pakistani-born Nazir-Ali faced biting criticism from his
liberal fellow Anglican bishops for not toeing the Church of England’s
politically correct line on Islam.
An indefatigable
campaigner against Muslim apostasy laws in Pakistan and a prolific writer on
Islam, Nazir-Ali said he regretted the church was not doing enough to convert
Muslims to Christianity.
“The so-called
‘blasphemy law’ has caused considerable grief for Christians and other
non-Muslim minorities since even the expression of their belief can be
construed as insulting the Prophet,” he wrote in a foreword to Freedom to Believe: Challenging
Islam’s Apostasy Law.
After a 15-year
apostolate as the 106th bishop of Rochester, Nazir-Ali resigned his bishopric
at the age of 59, announcing he would devote the rest of his life to working
for persecuted Christians in Muslim-dominated regions.
In 2008, the bishop
received death threats after
criticizing Islamic extremists for creating “no-go areas” for non-Muslims in
Britain. However, thousands of white working-class Britons wrote to him and in
the media commending him for his truth-telling and courage.
Nazir-Ali, who also
served as bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan, blamed multiculturalism for
segregating religious groups and said Britain’s abandoning the Christian faith
had led to a “multi-faith mish-mash.”
The ideology of
Islamic extremism had further alienated “the young from the nation in which
they were growing up and turn[ed] separate communities into ‘no-go’ areas,” he
wrote in Britain’s The Sunday Telegraph.
“If it had not been
for the Black-majority churches and the recent arrival of people from central
and Eastern Europe, the Christian cause in many of our cities would have looked
a lost one,” he argued.
Bishop
Nazir-Ali’s comments “have angered many working in interfaith
relations, who say he has undermined years of patient work,” the
liberal Church Times commented….
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ex-c-of-e-bishop-michael-nazir-ali-converts-to-catholicism
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