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Funding Stepped Up To Curb Spread Of Islam: Welt
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Sepe
calls the members of the organization as "my soldiers"
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By
Khaled Schmitt, IOL Correspondent
BERLIN,
May 31 (IslamOnline.net) – A German paper reported that the Vatican
has been pumping huge amounts of funds into a very influential
institution of the Catholic Church to halt the spread of Islam across
the world.
In
a report headlined "A million against Muhammad", Welt am
Sonntag said Sunday, May 30, that huge amounts of money will be
allotted to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a
reportedly secret organization.
The
report, prepared by Andreas Englisch, said the organization is now
mainly concerned with stemming the rising reversion to Islam by
tarnishing the image of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
The
Rome-based organization, ostensibly directed to study the relation
between Islam and Christianity, is the only international body working
for fueling tension between followers of the two faiths, it added.
The
paper said the organization is getting a wide support from world
governments and decision-makers to help it further promote
Catholicism, proselytization and carry out statistics and comparison
studies on the spread of Islam and Christianity in the world.
This
marks a change of perception towards the group, which had been
ignored, with Foreign Ministers declining to meet its representatives
since its establishment by Pope Pius VI in 1966-1572, it added.
The
pope had wanted to use the congregation for spreading Catholicism and
proselytize other peoples in new methods, the paper said.
Merciless
The
German newspaper said that the Congregation for the Evangelization of
Peoples depend on "merciless" administrative methods for its
work, the same the publication likened to those used by army soldiers.
It
cited the congregation's prefect Crescenzio Sepe calling the members
of the organization as "my soldiers".
The
word was not uttered randomly, but rather with a significance of the
work of the organization, the paper said, noting that the congregation
directly supervises 1,081 dioceses secretly working in countries that
ban Catholic activities.
The
publication named Saudi Arabia, Yemen, China, Vietnam and Cambodia as
some of these countries, saying that 40 per cent of Christians support
the organization's activities across the world.
It
said that 85,000 bishops and priests and 450,000 administrative
workers, all have helped prepare 65,000 priests in 280 courses made
over last years.
Serving
this huge number of staffers is "another army" comprising
one million ordinary people, with each earning 30 dollars as a basic
monthly pay in return for moving across towns and villages for
proselytizing the poor and marginalized, the paper averred.
The
organization has also a large infrastructure, including 42,000
schools, 1,600 hospitals, 6,000 first-aid medical centers and 780
others for treating cases inflicted with hepatitis, and 12,000 offices
for helping the poor and needy, the paper said.
Qatar
Inauguration
Welt
am Sonntag gave an extensive account of the organization's schools
in Asia and Africa, ways which the paper said are the best for
proselytizing and spreading Catholicism.
The
paper said that Cardinal Sepe inaugurated one of these schools last
week in Doha, Qatar, with 4,000 students a third of whom are
Christians.
Sepe,
who staged the celebration of John Paul’s 50th anniversary as a
priest in 1996, then said that the school is mainly introducing to
students a high-level education allowing them to be open minded and
unaffected by the stigma on Christianity.
Unlike
the Doha school, where forms of proselytizing are avoided in line with
the Arab Gulf country's laws, other schools are built in Asian
countries – especially India – clearly to turn pupils into
Christians.
A
lot of funds is given for the construction of these schools, but the
money is deemed well-invested to pay off in ending the spread of
Islam, said the paper.
The
organization has a budget of 500 million dollars annually, mainly
earmarked for proselytizing and stemming the conversion to Islam, the
paper concluded.
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