In a profoundly symbolic gesture (hat tip Tundra Tabloids), which epitomizes the Catholic Church's abject dhimmitude, high-profile Muslim convert to Christianity Magdi Christiano Allam, has renounced his Catholicism because of what he terms the Church's weakness toward, and legitimation of, Islam.

Allam, who will remain a Christian, reiterated his belief that Islam is inherently violent, to both its own votaries, and non-Muslims, and criticized The Church for lacking "the vision and courage to denounce the incompatibility of Islam with our [Western] civilization and fundamental rights of the person."

When Benedict XVI himself oversaw Magdi Allam's public Easter 2008 conversion from Islam to Christianity, in St. Peter's Basilica, the intrepid Mr. Allam clearly enunciated Islam's defining bellicose intolerance, while extolling the Pope's moral courage:

I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a "moderate Islam," assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive....His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.  For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice.

Despite his clear understanding of Islam, and prior actions which indicated a willingness to counter Islamization, Benedict XVI abandoned those efforts, and grudgingly, or not, embraced policies of dhimmitude. Benedict XVI never regained the bold moral clarity he demonstrated at Magdi Allam's public conversion to Catholicism, so that The Church, under his stewardship, did not overcome the profound fear expressed in this plaintive 1967 appeal  by Father Michel Hayek (1928-2005), the late Lebanese Maronite scholar of Islam:

Why not admit it clearly, so as to break a taboo and a political interdict, which is felt in the flesh and the Christian conscience--that Islam has been the most appalling torment that ever struck the Church. Christian sensibility has remained traumatized until now.

Magdi Cristiano Allam, despite his frustration with The Church's capitulation to Islam, maintained,

I will continue believe in Jesus I have always loved and proudly identify with Christianity as the civilization that more than others brings man closer to God who chose to become man.