Vatican uproar over screening of Islam scare story video: Cardinal shows bishops footage featuring alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe
A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe.
The seven-minute clip, called Muslim Demographics, was screened by Cardinal Peter Turkson during a free discussion period during an international gathering of 262 bishops.
Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops. One bishop said he would rebut Turkson by presenting a report with contrary data.
At a briefing for journalists, Father Thomas Rosica said the clip had sparked "the most animated" discussion so far at the three-week conference. "Islam is the buzzword," Rosica said.
Turkson could not be reached for comment on why he chose to screen the video during the Vatican meeting, where the bishops are discussing ways of winning back lapsed Roman Catholics in developed countries.
The clip, which has been viewed more than 13m times on YouTube since it was uploaded by an anonymous user in 2009, combines dramatic music with skewed population statistics to make claims about various European countries such as "In just 39 years, France will be an Islamic republic."
Critics have pointed out that the fertility figures used in the video, which claim French women have an average of 1.8 children while French Muslim women have 8.1 children, cannot be genuine as France does not collect statistics by religion.
According to a study by the US-based Pew Research Centre, there were 2.18 billion Christians in 2010, half of whom were Catholics. The total number of Muslims of all denominations was 1.6 billion and forecast to increase 35% to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to the research group.
Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, warned against a numbers war based on scare tactics by any side.
"I think that we should focus, Muslims and Christians, on our common challenges, rather than challenging each other in scary attitudes on who is going to increase or decrease in numbers," Pallavicini told Reuters. "It's our shared responsibility as brothers and believers in the same holy God."
