Vatican City, Jul 30, 2007 / 08:43 am
The Pope's private secretary warned against the Islamization of Europe and stressed the need for the continent's Christian roots not to be ignored, reported The Daily Telegraph.
"Attempts to Islamise the West cannot be denied," Msgr. Georg Gaenswein was quoted as saying in an advance copy of the weekly Sueddeutsche Magazin to be published today.
"The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected with it [Islam] should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respectfulness," the magazine quoted him as saying.
He also defended the Pope’s Regensburg address, in which he had linked Islam and violence, saying it had been an attempt by the pontiff to "act against a certain naivety".