Thursday, 06 January 2011 10:23

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Leaders of the Coptic Catholic Church in Egypt said a deadly attack against Christian worshipers was an act of political destabilization and a sign of the increasingly radical “Islamization” of the country.
“The newspapers are pointing the finger at al-Qaida. But terrorism arises in sectors of the Muslim society where other organizations encourage intolerance. For 40 years in Egypt, there has been a creeping Islamization that pervades every area of society,” said Coptic Auxiliary Bishop Kamal Fahim Awad Hanna of Alexandria.
Bishop Hanna told the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Jan. 3 that the government was making every effort to ensure the safety of worshipers as they prepared for the Coptic celebration of Christmas Jan. 7. All Christian churches have been surrounded by security forces, he said.
The reaction among most Egyptian Christians to the Jan. 1 attack has been fear and concern, but not the desperation that prompted a few spontaneous public protests, he said.
“For the great majority of Copts, even in the face of the horror of this attack … the reaction was moderate, because the faith emphasizes mercy for the victims and forgiveness for those who have erred,” the bishop said.
Bishop Hanna said the entire Egyptian society was shocked by the attack and concerned that it could endanger the relatively peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims in the country.
He pointed hopefully to a recent proposal by an official of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo to establish a new interreligious dialogue organization called the “House of the Egyptian Family,” which would include seven Christian and seven Muslim representatives.
Bishop Hanna said Egyptian schools were the most effective place to stem the spread of fundamentalism.