** FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant 789 bis 11 October 18 POPE FRANCIS’ TERRIBLE SECRET

POPE FRANCIS HAS SECRETLY EMBRACED ISLAM. OUTRAGEOUS FAKE NEWS? NOT ACCORDING TO SOME VATICAN INSIDERS.
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The Pope has secretly converted to Islam. Shock and horror! Relax: the fakest of all fake news? Yet Vatican voices – admittedly not benevolent - are whispering that much.

In the Holy City last week, close to St Peter’s Basilica, I rubbed shoulders with top churchmen attending the current XV Synod on Youth and the Faith. Father Frank is utterly obscure but, oddly, that obscurity helped. Maybe they mistook me for someone else. Anyway, a post-prandial conversation between two bishops was the first clue. Francis is alleged to have embraced Islam. ‘A joke’, I thought. Until a Middle East bishop who approached me murmured confirmation. Well, not explicitly – the man is no fool – but he hinted that much. And he was not pulling my leg – though I remain sceptic.

In the past Francis has shown himself perhaps the most Islam-friendly Pope of all times. He personally took Muslim refugees from Syria to come and stay in the Vatican apartments. As part of the sacred liturgy of Holy Thursday, recalling Christ’s supreme example, Francis washed the feet of Muslims. When asked publicly to condemn terrorism in the name of Islam, he declined. ‘If I spoke of Muslim violence I would also have to condemn Christian violence’, he said. Islamic scholars in Pakistan were happy. ‘By not linking terrorism with religion, Pope Francis will help promote interreligious harmony’, one Mufti commented. Conversely, some Christians were unimpressed. Worse, they felt betrayed. Little they knew what was brewing up.

In truth, it is not unprecedented for the head of a great Christian Church to adhere to another faith. Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1601, converted to Protestantism – a heresy the Orthodox abominated as much as Islam. Later, Lucar signed a ‘Confession of Faith’ which recast the Orthodox Faith in Calvinistic terms. Several angry Eastern Synods condemned him, though the support of Protestant countries kept him in power. To get rid of him his fellow bishops appealed to the Turkish rulers. Accused of colluding with the Russians, the Sultan had the apostate Patriarch hanged.

Suppose the rumour was true? The Pope really has become a Muslim. Why on earth would Francis do that? Let’s take the lowest motive: money. No question the Saudis would dish out billions of dollars to bag the Head of the Catholic Church, as they did with former Western ambassadors to Riyadh. It would be a propaganda coup for the Crescent faith worth Paradise. I reject this hypothesis out of hand, however. Francis is not venal. He lives in simplicity and shuns pomp and circumstance. He doesn’t care for worldly goods. No amount Wahhabi gold would ever tempt him - forget it.

Blackmail? Do, the Saudis or other Muslim potentates know something about Francis that would severely tarnish his reputation? ‘Either you become a Muslim or we tell the whole world the unsavoury truth about you?’ Is that possible? But the universal scandal of a Supreme Pontiff apostatising would exceed anything else, however shameful. Nothing could outdo the gravity of that. Besides the blackmailers could still reveal Francis’ secret whenever they wished... Hence this possibility too is a no-no.

Madness? Could the Pope have gone crazy? It is true that Francis occasionally makes eccentric, even un-Christian remarks – like the one about his hitting the man who insulted his mamma – but becoming a Muslim? That strains credibility. Unless…unless there was method in that madness. Some idealism. Some mystical ‘kenotic’ scheme. (‘Kenosis’ is a Greek word meaning ‘emptiness’.) St Paul in the Letter to the Philippians (2: 6-8) says that Christ Jesus, though in the form of God, did not cling to that equality but ‘emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death…’ Sounds tortuous and wildly implausible but…could Francis’ alleged conversion be like that? Loving Muslims to the point of himself, the Head of the Catholic Church, becoming one of them? Humbling himself, incurring the opprobrium of his Christian flock in order to act like Christ, to sacrifice his exalted status
for the sake of Muslim salvation?

Would that disappoint Muslims? Not necessarily. Providing the Holy Father had uttered the full Shehada, the Islamic profession of faith, meaning it, that would suffice. The problem would be practicisng it. Being a Muslim isn’t just a matter of subscribing to certain beliefs. You also have to pray the Islamic way, do the ritual ablutions, eat the right things, renounce lending at interest and so on. Tricky to do all that in secret, although it might have been part of a deal, who knows?

When Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Second Rome, dismayed Pope Pius II thought up a desperate stratagem. He addressed a letter to Mehmet, to this effect: ‘You have become the master of the city of Emperor Constantine and so won for yourself half of the Roman Empire. Now act like Constantine did. Be baptised, be a Christian and the rest of the Empire will be yours as well!’ Unsurprisingly, Mehmet shunned the Pope’s call. He had no desire to incur the hatred of Muslims by being a renegade. Besides, he intended to grab Christian Europe by force of arms. His successors tried and nearly made it. What Pius II would never have dreamt of doing is, in order to stop the Turks, to turn Turk himself.

A Muslim Pope. Just a scam? Cooked up by Francis’ enemies in the Curia to undermine his reputation? Probably. And yet…

Revd Frank Julian Gelli


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