In a brave, refreshing display of "anti-dhimmitude," Msg. Barnaba el Soryany, Bishop of the Coptic Church in Rome, rejected any presence of representatives of Rome's Muslim community -- either religious or political -- at a demonstration to commemorate the Coptic victims of the recent Alexandria bombing massacre. While openly embracing the participation of many other religious communities and institutions at the commemorative event, Msg. Soryany was "unafraid" to voice his rejection of Muslim participation, and further dismissed as propagandistic "exploitation" the claim by Egyptian investigators that the Alexandria attackers somehow came from outside Egypt.Msg. Soryany's clear-eyed statements recall the global assessment of Islam's devastating impact on Middle East Christianity made by the late Father Michel Hayek (1928-2005)Father Hayek was a Lebanese Maronite scholar who produced a corpus of work that included over forty published books, scores of...(Read Full Post)