"While Christians respect Islam and desire to dialogue with Muslims," Pope Benedict XVI's private secretary says, "[we] must act to protect the Christian identity of Europe."

Msgr. Georg Ganswein, the Pope's secretary, was interviewed in Friday's edition of Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine. Though the interview covered many different issues, his comments about Islamic influence in Europe, and what Catholics should do about it, may prove to be the most controversial...

..."I believe the Regensburg speech, as it is known, was prophetic," Msgr. Ganswein told the German magazine, because it countered a "certain naivete" among people who do not recognize that various currents exist within Islam.

"Attempts at the 'Islamification' of the West cannot be denied," he said, according to an English translation in the Catholic Explorer. "And the associated danger for the identity of Europe cannot be ignored out of a wrongly understood sense of respect... The Catholic side sees this clearly and says as much." True respect, Ganswein said, is shown in a dialogue with Muslims that is frank, open and honest...