An Open Letter to a Muslim Journalist “Spy”

Saudara,

I just read that recently you and a friend visited one of the churches that I belong to. I was surprised that you had to do

it in disguise. You should have told the Catholic community there that you were coming and we would have given you a grand welcome.

Such was the experience of the MP for Shah Alam, Khalid Abdul Samad from Pas (see * below), who was even given a standing ovation when he visited and had a dialogue with the parishioners of the Church of the Divine Mercy in Shah Alam last year.

Some time back I was attending a Mass (Catholic worship) in a Catholic church in Petaling Jaya and was very moved by the presence of a group of Muslim students together with their Muslim professor who had taken them there as part of their  “exposure programme”.  None of them were converted.

You see we are not an underground church nor do we function in a clandestine manner. Our hearts are on the holy and not on the hideous. We even pray for Najib the PM, though I feel we do not pray enough for the Opposition. We also pray for people like you who do more harm than good to the name of your religion of peace, tolerance and compassion.

Further, what takes place in Catholic churches is highlighted in our in-house newspaper which was quite unknown to the whole population and whose readers formed an insignificant number – until the Government decided to prevent it from using the word

“Allah”. Alas, the Herald should thank the Government for making it so well-known today.

Religious Misfits

It is a pity that you have gone through so much trouble to “investigate” under guise what is going on in Catholic Churches or that “Muslim teenagers were being converted to Christianity in Kuala Lumpur ’s churches every Sunday”. You should have gone directly to the Special Branch, which sends it officers to visit our churches occasionally. Surely they will be able to tell you that you would be only wasting your time!

As for the information that Muslims are being driven in droves into Catholicism (which you have concluded to be “false” in your article) it has been a fallacious and stale rumour for quite some time, spread by those who have an obsession and paranoia or by the increasing number of lower echelon zealots or “Little Mullah Napoleons” running riot with their brand of religion.

In Feb. 2006, the Mufti of Perak, Haji Harussani Haji Zakaria, claimed that 250,000 Muslims (of which 100,000 were Malays) had apostatized themselves, while 100,000 more had submitted applications to do so. Of course he was unable to substantiate his claim because it was false.

In Nov. 2006, about 500 Muslims protested in front of the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ipoh following a SMS wherein the same Mufti had disclosed that about 600 Muslim students of the Ungku Omar Polytechnic were to be baptized by national mariner Azhar Mansor! (see ** below)

The church was not converting Muslims but instead was holding the First Holy Communion Mass (one of the rites of initiation to the faith) for 98 Catholic children, many of whom were traumatised by the sight of a threatening mob. Imagine the very unfortunate impression the young Catholics would have got of Islam and of Muslims.

The mufti who had proven to be more of a misfit, was not man enough to own up. He blamed it on an SMS sent out by a woman!

Why no action was taken against the mufti, and why the authorities remained mute (on both occasions) over his “mischief” remains but a mystery. You must have been motivated by the mufti.

If indeed the Catholic Church has the conversion of Muslims as its hidden agenda, it would surely have started converting hundreds or even thousands of impressionable young Muslims through its Catholic Mission schools which have existed for as long as 100 years, But no such thing has ever happened.

The Muslim classmates and friends that I had in St Michael’s Ipoh are still good and respected Muslims today, and such was their appreciation and respect for the La Salle Brothers that they made sure that their children in turn would attend a La Salle school or a Convent!

Sacrilegious

Sadly, your disrespect knew no bounds. You chose to abandon all human and religious decency with impunity as a journalist and a Muslim. Under pretense of being a Catholic you participated in the church service and even partook of the Holy Communion (a white and sacred wafer) strictly meant only for Catholics.

You consumed the white wafer which Catholics hold as very sacred and treat with utmost reverence,  and both of you spat out the remnants, photographed it and published the picture in an article entitled “Tinjaun Al Islam Dalam Gereja:Mencari Kesahihan Remaja Murtad” which was published in the May 2009 issue of the Al Islam magazine.

I shudder to think of what could happen if the reverse took place — if for instance two reporters from the Herald were to enter a mosque disguised as Muslims, partake of the rituals and desecrate something which the congregation considers very sacred.

I can imagine Khairy Jamaluddin leading a group of Umno Youth thugs and burning the effigy of the Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur and even threatening to set fire to a few churches, and Zulkifli Nordin rousing up a mob and invading the Herald’s office and demanding that it be shut down for good; or certain Muslim NGOs insisting that the two journalists be jailed under the ISA!

It makes me wonder how does a “creature” like you exist in this country?  Are you the product of the educational, social or even religious system or process created by Bolehland’s leaders (also read as “Umno”) over the past 30 years?

How is it possible that you could blatantly trespass into a place of worship, violate its sanctity, insult its adherents, even publish your transgression and completely ignore the implications and consequences (will there be any)? What gives you such audacity?

It all points to the reality of you being a cog in Umno’s machine – a political party that has politicised religion for its survival by creating unfounded insecurities amongst Muslims and a distrust of other religions. Meanwhile it dominates, dictates, decides and even defines what non-Muslims can and cannot discuss, deliberate on, and display in print.

Najib’s 1Malaysia is really Malaysia in one big mess!

As I join my Catholic brothers and sisters in forgiving you (a Catholic duty we are reminded of!), I also pray that you will feel the full weight of God’s wrath upon you.

I feel sad for the many good Muslims in this country who have a respect for peoples of other faiths, for not only have you insulted Catholics but you have insulted them too. Islam would do well without religious misfits like you!

Martin Jalleh
(15 July 2009)

Yesterday, I was at Sunday Mass at the St. Ignatius Church in Kelana Jaya. Unlike most masses throughout the year, this mass included the children (all of them should be at the age of 7 or 8, about 50-70 of 'em) receiving their first Holy Communion. The kids were all dressed in white; for the boys, all-whites with a red tie; for the girls, white fancy dress with a veil and even white gloves. Such a momentous occasion in a Roman Catholic child's life.

For the un-initiated, the First Holy Communion is a Roman Catholic ceremony for a person's first reception of the sacrament (rite) of the Eucharist (The Lord's Supper/Holy Communion). This celebration is something like a rite of passage for the children towards the sacramental life of the Roman Catholic church. Perhaps, due to the child reaching his/her perceived "age-of-reason".

For so many years, I have always avoided such masses as it always tend to be longer than the usual Sunday mass. But that's not the main reason for this entry, at least not to lament too much. For a long time, I have forgotten how to be a child. Everyday I'm surrounded by the prejudice and pre-conceptions of the world, that I rarely have any reason to truly smile. As a child, the atrocities of the world is, more often than not, hidden away from the child. A child will not truly understand such happenings and prejudice. As a homage to the film, La vita è bella, this movie demonstrates how a loving father shields his son from the evils within life in Europe during the Nazi occupation.

I've missed such bliss and would give it all away just to be a child again.

But then again, is it truly acceptable that one should live within such confines, oblivious of that all is happening or even accepting things that are told to us with blind faith? As a child, can they even truly fathom an entity such as God or a religious belief? Admittedly, when I was that young, I too didn't really understand. We were told to believe in something that holds no evidential proof, let alone having to wake up early every Sunday, just to listen to some old priest for almost an hour.

I would bet that even some adults out there are accepting their beliefs as blindly as a child. Is it truly human nature of some to just accept the way things are? Or what's worst than the blind leading the blind? Would it be too foolish to say that we all lack some degree of understanding? What about the considerations towards other opinions on any subject matter? Why are they so many differing opinions on one subject at times?

Anyways, in regards to the Sunday mass, although I smiled for all the kids, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for all of us.