The murder of a Roman Priest in Turkey

Meredith Hodge
2/12/09
6:41 pm

The murder of a Roman Priest in Turkey causes the Christian-Muslim Tension to resurface. On February 5th, a 16 year old boy went into St. Mary's Church in Trabzon, turkey and shot 61 year old Fr. Santoro twice in the lungs and in the heart. Fr. Santoro was serving as a missionary ever since the age of 55 when he decided he wanted to "start over again" in the place where one tradition holds that Abraham was born, in Urfa, and where the earliest Christian communities took shape.” We later learn that the 16 year old who killed Fr. Santoro was not known to be involved in radical groups or linked to jihadist movements but he was heavily influenced by an Islamic militant group that he connected with through the internet. It turns out he had used the pistol that belonged to his father, a local dentist, to kill Fr. Santoro. The 16 year old boy’s father said he was undergoing psychiatric treatment.
Is this boy really mentally ill? Or is he just following out what he believes to be right and what he believes God wants from him? The fact that the number of Christians in turkey was several million and has now dropped to merely thousands is in part because people are afraid of persecution. These Christians completely dropped what they believed in, their religious practice, and immediately adopted Islamic ones. People have been being persecuted for centuries. We hear of martyrs in the holy books and we can see religious persecution every day. People will never completely agree; especially not on religion. So why change everything you stand for just because someone doesn’t approve? We should focus on converting them, while at the same time tolerating them.


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_17_42/ai_n16101588