This upsurge in baptisms of converts from Islam is part of a general trend of a sharp rise in baptisms of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 in France, with an increase of the number of new catechumens for 2024 exceeding 30%, while it was 28% in 2023.
Amid the turmoil of their unforeseen conversion, Marie-Anne and Nicolas also faced the challenge of integrating into their new Catholic communities.
The Ananie network played a crucial role in this process, offering these new converts a valuable anchor thanks to the weekly Wednesday Mass followed by a time of study and friendly dialogue between former Muslims.
“I had felt a kind of aloofness in my new parish because of my past,” Nicolas remembered. “Although I’m French by birth, it took a long time for me to feel integrated; I felt very isolated, and meeting the Ananie network did me a lot of good.”
Avoiding the wrong approach
It was precisely to compensate for the lack of preparation in many Catholic parishes for welcoming converts from Islam that the Ananie service came into being at the request of Saadé to then-Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris. A Maronite Christian originally from Lebanon, he was ordained in 2018 a priest in the Maronite Church, which is in communion with Rome, and brings invaluable field experience to the project.
In addition to his mission of welcoming new converts and directing them to suitable parishes, he also offers, via the network’s website, “vademecums” (“handbooks”) for parishes and those accompanying catechumenates as well as training videos.
“I realized that many new converts from Islam had left the Catholic Church, not because the faithful were unkind to them, but because they often want to show themselves so favorable to Islam that they come to explain that we worship the same God and that, in the end, there’s no need to become a Christian to access salvation,” said Saadé, stressing that this misguided approach concerned both clergymen and laypeople.
“Yet many of those who join Christ do so at the risk of their lives: Some have left their countries, have been rejected by their families; they are in real danger — the last thing they need is to be sent back to their Muslim identity.”
In his view, the interreligious dialogue implemented by Church authorities over the past decades, which has been very beneficial for the mutual understanding of cultures and peoples, can also sometimes be a source of misunderstandings about the duty of Christians in the West to announce.
“Many people of Islamic origin arriving in a parish to become Christians are often welcomed in a way unsuited to their situations, as if they were still Muslim when in fact they are no longer,” he continued.
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Overcoming the fear of offending
According to the Maronite priest, the most urgent thing for the Church hierarchy today — especially in Europe, where immigration from Muslim countries is constantly on the rise — is to clarify its position on welcoming new converts.
“We must not be afraid to assert that the Church is there to baptize those who wish to be baptized, at the end of a long path of freedom that is the catechumenate, and to raise issues relating to freedom of conscience with Muslim leaders, asking them concretely what can be done at the level of education and families to prevent the pressures and reprisals experienced by those who encounter Christ and want to follow him,” Saadé added.
He also pointed out that the search for consensual dialogue is a typically Western approach, not often understood by Eastern Arabic culture, where tension is synonymous with authentic dialogue, the necessary foundation for constructive exchange.
“If we Christians are ashamed of our identity, we will disappear in the face of an expansionist Islam in the West that forces us to question ourselves,” he said.
At the same time, Saadé noted that, transcending the shortcomings and imperfections of human situations, Jesus himself never fails to intervene to touch hearts.
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