The missing Muslim outcry
By Jeff Jacoby
As she lay dying in a Mogadishu hospital, Sister Leonella forgave her killers. She had lived in Africa for almost four decades and could speak fluent Somali, but her last words were murmured in Italian, her mother tongue. "Perdono, perdono," she whispered. I forgive, I forgive.
She was 65 and had devoted her life to the care of sick mothers and children. She was on her way to meet three other nuns for lunch on Sunday when two gunmen shot her several times in the back. "Her slaying was not a random attack," the Associated Press reported. It "raised concerns" that she was the latest victim of "growing Islamic radicalism in the country."
"Raised concerns? Sister Leonella was gunned down less than two days after a prominent Somali cleric had called on Muslims to kill Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam in a scholarly lecture last week.
'We urge you, Muslims, wherever you are to hunt down the pope for his barbaric statements,' Sheik Abubukar Hassan Malin had exhorted worshippers during evening prayers at a Mogadishu mosque. 'Whoever offends our prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim.” Sister Leonella was not the pope, but she was presumably close enough for purposes of the local jihadis." Read more.
As she lay dying in a Mogadishu hospital, Sister Leonella forgave her killers. She had lived in Africa for almost four decades and could speak fluent Somali, but her last words were murmured in Italian, her mother tongue. "Perdono, perdono," she whispered. I forgive, I forgive.
She was 65 and had devoted her life to the care of sick mothers and children. She was on her way to meet three other nuns for lunch on Sunday when two gunmen shot her several times in the back. "Her slaying was not a random attack," the Associated Press reported. It "raised concerns" that she was the latest victim of "growing Islamic radicalism in the country."
"Raised concerns? Sister Leonella was gunned down less than two days after a prominent Somali cleric had called on Muslims to kill Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam in a scholarly lecture last week.
'We urge you, Muslims, wherever you are to hunt down the pope for his barbaric statements,' Sheik Abubukar Hassan Malin had exhorted worshippers during evening prayers at a Mogadishu mosque. 'Whoever offends our prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim.” Sister Leonella was not the pope, but she was presumably close enough for purposes of the local jihadis." Read more.
posted by HeavyHanded at
10:22 PM
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