Tag: Padovese

  • The murder of Mgr. Padovese and the birth of a new Turkey

    The murder of Mgr. Padovese and the birth of a new Turkey

    by NAT da Polis

    TURCHIA f 0604 PadoveseOne year after the murder of the bishop, Murat Altum, the murderer has been judges sane and will be put on trial. The hand of ultra-nationalists behind the murder to discredit Prime Minister Erdogan and the future coexistence between Christians and Muslims. The elections of June 12 may prepare a new chapter for the country and coexistence.

    Istanbul (AsiaNews) – The Health Department of Istanbul has declared Murat Altun, who murdered Msgr. Padovese sane. The report now opens the way for Altun to be put on trial and refutes previous analysis that had initially defined him incapable of consent. The doctors annlounced their findings only nine days before an election that will determine the political future of Turkey and Prime Minister Erdogan.

    Until now all murders committed against members of religious minorities, put down to being the isolated actions of mentally unstable Muslims. Including the cases of Don Andrea Santoro, who was killed in 2006 in Trabzon, the three Protestant Christians who had their throats slit in Malatya in 2007, of journalist Hrant Dink, of Armenian origin, who was killed in 2007 in Istanbul.

    As has often been said in the press, these murders are really political in nature and not linked to Islamic extremism, which is alien to the Turkish tradition. The killers belong to ultra-nationalist elements related to what is known as the “deep state”. It consists of a network of state and parastatal structures, created within Kemalist ideology, which in the name of the Turkish nation and its integrity, trample any concept of freedom and rule of law, not skimping relationships with organized crime.

    The murder of Mgr. Padovese, which occurred June 3, 2010 in Iskenderun, falls within this context. Unlike other cases, it shows some important connotations.

    1 – For the first time ultranationalists targeted a high-ranking Catholic Church figure. 2 – His murder took place at the height of the clash between the old establishment and Erdogan, government dormant since 2002, with the first election won by the leader of the Party for Justice and Development Party (AKP). The conflict between the two sides culminated in 2007 with the election of Abdullah Gül, a leading exponent of the AKP, as president of the Turkish Republic. To counter Erdogan the Constitutional Court, linked to the nationalists, in 2008 proposed the closure of the AKP, on charges of trying to introduce an Islamic confessional state. Erdogan responded to the accusations against the government by revealing the plot organized by Ergenekon, a secret ultra nationalistic organization tied to the military, which had planned the murder of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and other personalities.

    3 – The political situation is compounded by the extraordinary and important work of Mgr. Padovese, who had begun to take the approach of dialogue with Islam in the context of mutual respect, overcoming the doubts of the Catholic world and the prejudices of an ultra-nationalistic nature.

    This caused strong concern among the fringes of the “deep state”. The Nationalists hit on the eve of the Synod of Cyprus for the Middle East chaired by Pope Benedict XVI, to discredit the Islamic world and its representatives, currently in power: Erdogan and his AKP party. In case of victory in the elections of June 12, it will fall to the Turkish prime minister to respond through democratic reforms, realising the dream of Mgr. Padovese for a common peaceful coexistence between Christianity and Islam is possible in Turkey.

    via TURKEY The murder of Mgr. Padovese and the birth of a new Turkey – Asia News.

  • Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder

    Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder

    A mass is set to take place in Iskenderun. Mgr Ruggero Franceschini will conduct the service in the presence of the nuncio. As Catholics keep a very low profile, an Istanbul medical commission finds the prelate’s murderer, Murat Altun, fit to stand trial after he was on his way to acquittal on …

    Ankara – The Turkish Catholic Church will remember Mgr Luigi Padovese on Sunday, a year after his murder. A mass will be celebrated in Iskenderun cathedral, where Padovese was bishop, in the presence of representatives of various Christians denominations and local authorities. Mgr Ruggero Franceschini, archbishop of Izmir and apostolic vicar to Iskenderun (Anatolia), will preside over the ceremony. Apostolic Nuncio Mgr Antonio Lucibello and a number of Vatican officials who flew in from Rome for that purpose will be present at the service, sources told AsiaNews.

    Catholics are keeping a very low profile in relation to the anniversary, fearing that the memory of the murder might stir controversy again just a few days before the 12 June parliamentary elections. Members of the local Catholic community report in fact a rise in nationalist and fundamentalist feelings that often turn violent against Christians.

    Mgr Luigi Padovese, a member of the Capuchin order, had his throat cut. His assassin, then 26-year-old assassin, Murat Altun, after his arrest, said he attacked the prelate because he was unfriendly towards Islam, was morbidly homosexual, crazy . . . (see Geries Othman, “Mgr Luigi Padovese assassinated in southern Turkey, in AsiaNews, 3 June 2010, and ibid., “Mgr. Padovese’s driver charged with murder. Doubts about his ‘insanity’,” in AsiaNews, 4 June 2010).

    After the murder, Mgr Franceschini has repeatedly called for truth to be told and an end to the lies (see Bernardo Cervellera, “Archbishop of Smyrna: The martyrdom of bishop Padovese we want the truth and not “pious lies,” in AsiaNews, 10 June 2010, “Mgr Franceschini: ultranationalist and religious fanatics behind Bishop Padovese’s murder,” in AsiaNews, 16 October 2010, and “Mgr Franceschini: The Turkish Church “can not intervene” against falsehoods on Mgr. Padovese,” in AsiaNews, 2 December 2010).

    Until recently, these requests have fallen on deaf years. Sources told AsiaNews that the assassin, who was the bishop’s driver, could have avoided trial on mental health grounds. Yesterday, an Istanbul medical commission ruled instead that he was fit to stand trial. A date for his day in court has not yet been decided.

    Padovese’s death is not an isolated incident. Other Christians have been attacked. Fr Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest, was killed in 2006 in Trabzon; three Protestants had their throats cut in Malatya in 2007; Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul in 2007.

    In addition, other Christians have been wounded in murder attempts. The latest occurred in Adana (Anatolia), last Good Thursday, when a group of young people went inside a church to kill its priest, Father Francis, a capuchin from India.

    They were stopped by a group of young Catholics who locked the would-be murderers inside a room, and called police.

    Father Francis is currently in India waiting for tensions to lessen.

    via TURKEY – VATICAN Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder | Spero News.