Aid to the Church in Need: Ethiopia: The curse of militant Islam

Ethiopia: The curse of militant Islam

Posted by Press Release on 2/12/2005, 7:02 am
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ETHIOPIA 2nd December 2005
Ethiopia: The curse of militant Islam
By John Pontifex
THE Church in Ethiopia is desperate for help amid claims that Islamists are making in-roads into national life, funded by militant Muslim groups in the Middle East.
In a strongly-worded message, Catholic missionary Fr Melaku Tafesse Amente said Ethiopia’s ancient Christian heritage was under threat, stressing that hard-line Muslims had massively expanded their influence over the country’s culture and economy.
The Comboni missionary told how Islamist movements in the Middle East were pumping money into Ethiopia to fund a vast expansion in Islamic control over key parts of national life including hospitals, schools and supermarkets.
Citing reports that there were now almost as many Muslims in Ethiopia as Christians, Fr Melaku added: “The Muslims will soon be superior.”
Fr Melaku said Muslims were having vast numbers of children, thereby exacerbating poverty, which in turn provided a fertile ground for recruitment to militant forms of Islam.
In the interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the charity for persecuted poverty-stricken Christians, Fr Melaku said that in a country rife with poverty, Muslims were offering people food on condition that they converted to Islam.
“The Muslims now have enormous economic power,” he said. “They say you have to become a Muslim if you want to open a shop. It then becomes clear that the shop’s main aim is not to act as a business but to recruit people to Islam.
“Up till now, there has been a lot of tolerance shown by Muslims towards Christians. However, in just a few years to come, it could become very violent.”
Fr Melaku, called on Christians in the West to help the Church in Ethiopia respond to the crisis. He said the priority was to step up efforts to spread the Gospel message.
The priest, who has led missionary activities all over the country, described how in the last few years dozens of mosques had been built on some of the main roads into the capital, Addis Ababa. “Even if there is only one Muslim family in the neighbourhood, they will build a huge mosque nearby.”
Fr Melaku’s words echo comments by Monsignor Lorenzo Ceresoli, apostolic vicar of Awasa, south Ethiopia, who this week told ACN: “Consolidating the Church in a considerably Muslim environment…is of the utmost importance.”
Both Mgr Ceresoli and Fr Melaku emphasised that Ethiopia had a shortage of priests and that as a result active lay Christians had a crucial part to play in reaching out to deprived communities and helping them to discover the Faith.
“We have been baptising people,” he said, “but people are not finding opportunities to learn about the Christian message and that means they fall away easily.”
The bishop called on ACN’s help for construction aid for chapels and churches, support for priests as well as funding for the translation of the Bible into the local Sidama language.
“The lay people have to take responsibility for spreading the Faith and understanding it. Only this way will they be able to speak up for their own faith when a priest or sister isn’t there to answer for them.”
He insisted that Christians take the lead in schools and colleges, saying that education was the only effective way to escape poverty.
In 2004, ACN gave nearly $480,00 to help the Christian faithful in Ethiopia.

Editor’s Notes:
Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need is a registered charity dedicated to the support of persecuted and poverty-stricken Christians.
Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world, especially Eastern Europe.
The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, more than 42million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.
For more information about Aid to the Church in Need, contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org