RU 22+23/2010 - TURKEY

TURKEY (ru, June 14th, 2010): Thus our worst presentiments proved true (see our previous RU news) : Mgr Padovese has been ritually murdered by his Muslim driver on June 3rd at 1 PM at Iskenderun. Here are all the details of this story, according to the excellent article written by Jeanne Smits in PRESENT of June 10th under the title "The Murder of Bishop Padovese: a ritual crime ? » Please find hereafter the full text of this article (with the kind authorization of the author, in our own translation into English):

"The assassination at Iskenderun (Alexandrette), last Thursday, of the president of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Turkey by his driver, Murat Altun, raises some burning questions, now that the Vatican has apparently sought not to highlight this event in order not to interfere with the travel of Benedict XVI to Cyprus. A series of facts reported by different sources close to Archbishop Luigi Padovese are becoming more and more indicative of a ritual assassination of a Christian prelate by an Islamic fundamentalist. Some of these facts may be taken for sure. There are first the Turkish communications about the case, including the explanatory variations which are in themselves significant. The press reported first about the driver as a man who converted to Christianity, but a little later the governor of the province of Hatay where is located Alexandrette (NB : today called Iskenderun) ensured that the murderer was suffering from psychological disorders; but it would not have been necessary to exonerate Islam if Altun had been a Christian, such as wrote here Maroun Charbel. Anyway, those "disturbances » were not, after investigation, attested by any doctor.

And then we were told that Murat Altun suffered from "depression" since a fortnight. At least, he would have, in any event, informed his Episcopal employer about this kind of disease. The last excuse came from his lawyer who denies the existence of any psychological problems : Murat Altun would have acted in self-defence (sic), to respond to a proposal of homosexual relations made by Bishop Padovese. A multiplicity of successive mobiles which, eventually, cancel themselves mutually, descending up to the most despicable of all accusations, that by the way the autopsy of the bishop has not confirmed, as stated by the Catholic bishop of Izmir.

The indicated time of the death of Mgr Padovese has also undergone successive amendments by the authorities: first he reportedly died in the hospital, and then on the way to the hospital. Only after the evidence of photographs of the beheaded body of the Episcopal Vicar in his garden, on which his head could be seen as only attached to his body by a shred of skin, the Turkish authorities recognized that he died in his residence. The autopsy revealed that Bishop Padovese had received 20 blows of knife, eight of which in the region of the heart. According to witnesses, he dragged himself to the entry door of his house crying for help, before his throat was cut.

Now there are also evidences reported by the Italian and Hispanic press, i.e. insistent testimonies which came from several persons, saying that after the assassin had cut the throat of his victim, he would have mounted on the roof of the episcopal residence shouting: “Allah Akhbar ! I have killed the Great Satan! » This gives to this crime the allure of a ritual murder according to the criteria of Islamism and particularly of the Turkish group “Deep State". This news is reported by the very serious Vatican agency AsiaNews.

But there are other stories which are yet more disturbing, as reported by the Vatican specialist Filippo di Giacomo : the Turkish authorities, which had since four years put Murat Altun at the disposal of the bishop of Iskenderun, allegedly called the latter in the morning of his death for warning him that Altun had "escaped" to them and that he was now member of an extremist Islamic movement. Padovese, who worked for months on the instrument of work for the Synod for the Middle East for which Benedict XVI came solemnly to Cyprus in order to hand it over to the Patriarchs and Bishops of the Orient, was indeed supposed to take an airplane for Cyprus with his driver on the afternoon of Corpus Christi, in order to attend this meeting for which he was apparently a decisive initiator.

From various sources we are told that Bishop Padovese suddenly cancelled the tickets of the plane, only a few hours before departure. The press agency Misna (Missionary International Service News Agency) reported the testimony of sister Eleonora de Stefano from the Franciscan order, assistant secretary of Archbishop Padovese, certifying that he has in effect asked her to cancel the tickets at 1 PM, while he had lunch in its private residence with Altun, trying to get him out of his "depression”, as he was "tired". The nun also affirms that Altun refused to accompany his employer to Cyprus.

But what is the aspect of the role played by Altun to make believe that he was in an abnormal condition? For Filippo di Giacomo, Bishop Padovese decided probably to cancel his trip for fear of exposing Benedict XVI to an attack by the presence of his driver (perhaps accepting to attract on him the wrath of his employee and  the risk of being himself immolated…). In any case, at the funeral of Mgr. Padovese, the bishop of Izmir, Mgr Ruggero Franceschini, qualified him as "martyr".

Yet more disturbing are the allegations of Mgr Franceschini collected by the Stampa: “Even the police starts to recognize that the bishop was murdered by at least two persons",  as Altun went to Mgr Padovese in his private residence, shortly before the crime, accompanied by at least one or two persons. Other witnesses ensure that Altun wore a bullet-proof vest, and wonder why the murderer was arrested by the military police. A member of the catholic community of Iskenderun, quoted by the Stampa, affirms that several members of the family of Altun who worked for Mgr Padovese in the local church, had resigned from their posts two days earlier. But it’s certainly not in the interest of the Turkish government to make known such accusations. »

End of quotation of the article of PRESENT. So Bishop Padovese died murdered for Christ, which confers to him the glory of martyrdom. Like Father Popieluszko, murdered by the Polish Communists in 1984 and beatified on this June 6th 2010 in Warsaw, one can hope that Bishop Padovese will take the same path in being elevated by the Church on the altars.

Of course, this killing shattered the permanent Vatican strategy of "dialog” with Islam",  a way of raising Islam to the illusory level  of a religion. Yet the voices never lacked in Rome to say the truth concerning Islam. Just recall what said for example Mgr Bernardini, bishop of Izmir (formerly Smyrna) from 1983 to 2004, who stated in front of the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1999 the following story: in a Catholic convent, he says, a Muslim servant announced very calmly to the religious that if his imams decided to kill the infidels, despite his esteem for his Christian employers, he would not hesitate for a single moment to butcher them, but he specified that he would do it cleanly... And the bishop added: "During a formal meeting on the Islamic-Christian dialog, an influential Muslim told the Christians very quietly: thanks to your democratic laws, we shall invade you, and thanks to our religious laws, we shall dominate you.” Bishop Bernardini did not hesitate to announce to the bishops gathered in Rome: "Do never give to Muslims a Catholic church for their worship, this would be for them the most certain evidence of our apostasy !” All these statements were his way to say that we are wrong to believe that there is a border line between moderate Islam and radical Islam, as the two are nourished by the same Koran. What finally is yet necessary that the Good Lord do to us, so that we understand that Islam is not a partner of dialog, but one of the most ferocious enemies of the Church? Is it not necessary to do our utmost to save the hundreds of millions of people under Islam’s control in the world, so as to save their souls? We must seriously organize their evangelisation, at least already with the Muslims who are living with us. That’s the 12th crusade to be carried out today!

Even the cardinal Paul Poupard, Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Culture until 2007, said in the Figaro, on the eve of the same Synod of 1999: "Europe must be aware that Islam wants the conquer it.» And as the only response, there would be "dialog » ? We are either inexcusable utopians - or rather cowards. That those who have ears, may hear! (Cf. RU No. 42/1999)