Italian Bishop Urges Catholics To Evangelize Muslims

According to The European Conservative, Bishop Antonio Suetta of Ventimiglia-San Remo released a pastoral letter on the feast of Pentecost arguing that welcoming Muslim migrants must be accompanied by the open proclamation of Christianity and its central claim that salvation is found only through Jesus Christ.

The letter, entitled There Is No Greater Love Than This, was published ahead of a new diocesan outreach initiative targeting Muslims in the region near the French border, an area heavily impacted by immigration in recent years.

Evangelisation as Duty, Not Compromise

Bishop Suetta drew inspiration from the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who met with the Sultan during the Crusades. He urged Christians to engage Muslims with charity and respect, but insisted that missionary zeal and doctrinal clarity must not be abandoned in the process.

The bishop repeatedly emphasised that Christians bear a duty to convert non-Christians, including the growing number of Muslims now residing in Europe. While noting that Muslims worship one God and share certain moral values with Christians, he stressed that the two faiths offer fundamentally different understandings of the divine.

For Christians, God is a Father whose essence is love, Suetta wrote. He contrasted this with what he characterised as the Islamic conception of a more distant deity to whom humanity must submit.

Secular Decay and Muslim Misperception

The bishop also addressed the moral decay of secular Western societies, warning that many Muslim migrants mistakenly equate contemporary immorality with Christianity itself. He argued that only through encounter with faithful, coherent Christians do Muslims come to understand that secularisation represents not Christianity but its corruption.

Suetta rejected the notion that peaceful coexistence alone is sufficient. Catholics, he insisted, have a responsibility to proclaim what they believe to be the truth of the Gospel, regardless of the cultural or political pressures to remain silent.

Evangelisation as a Lifeline

In one of the letter’s most striking passages, the bishop compared evangelisation to throwing a rope to someone drowning in a river. Failing to share the Christian message with those in spiritual need, he wrote, would constitute grave negligence.

The pastoral letter arrives at a time when many European Church leaders have adopted more cautious, dialogue-focused approaches to Islam. Bishop Suetta’s initiative represents a contrast to that trend, reasserting the Church’s traditional evangelistic mission in the face of demographic and cultural transformation across the continent.

With information from The European Conservative