Bishop Antonio Suetta

An Italian bishop has called on Catholics to share the Gospel with Muslim migrants and said that failing to proclaim Jesus Christ would amount to a betrayal of the Church’s mission An Italian bishop has urged Catholics to evangelise Muslims living in their communities, warning that failing to proclaim Jesus Christ would be a betrayal of the Church’s mission. In a pastoral letter issued for the Diocese of Ventimiglia-Sanremo, Bishop Antonio Suetta said Christians should welcome Muslim migrants with charity and respect while remaining committed to sharing the Gospel. “To neglect the proclamation of Jesus Christ would be to disregard His saving Cross and His universal mediation. Ultimately, it would be to betray our mission as the baptised,” the bishop wrote in a new diocesan pastoral letter, There Is No Greater Love Than This . The letter, published ahead of a diocesan initiative aimed at strengthening engagement with local Muslim communities, comes as parts of Italy continue to experience significant migration from North Africa and the Middle East. Drawing on the example of St Francis of Assisi’s encounter with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil in Egypt during the Fifth Crusade in 1219, Bishop Suetta argued that Christians should neither conceal their faith nor approach Muslims with hostility. Instead, he pointed to the saint’s instructions in the Regula non bullata of 1221, which encouraged friars living among non-Christians to bear witness through the example of their lives while also proclaiming the Christian faith. The bishop said many Muslims arriving in Europe encounter a secularised society and often mistake moral decline for Christianity itself. “Muslims arriving in Western countries are often bewildered by the secularisation of society, as they tend, mistakenly, to be sure, yet understandably, to equate public immorality with the Christian faith,” he wrote. “Only when they come into contact with Christians who live consistently with their faith do they realise that secularisation is a corruption of Christianity; thus, they begin to discover the true face of Jesus.” While emphasising the importance of dialogue and collaboration, Bishop Suetta insisted that Christian witness could not stop at hospitality alone. “Hospitality and collaboration are, in themselves, two ways of bearing practical witness to true faith in Jesus,” the bishop said. “Such acts must always be accompanied by our spiritual identity, speaking of Jesus Christ not through imposition, but with love.” The bishop devoted a significant section of the letter to the Church’s missionary mandate, citing both St John Paul II and Pope Francis. He argued that the changing religious landscape of Europe meant that the traditional missionary territories of previous centuries were now present within Western societies themselves. “If in the past the mission ad gentes to non-Christians had as its privileged setting countries with a non-Christian majority, the time has now come to take up this responsibility here at home, particularly towards Muslim immigrants,” Bishop Suetta wrote. Among the most striking passages of the document is a comparison between evangelisation and rescuing a drowning person. “If we see someone struggling to climb out of a river, yet being swept away by the current, and we happen to have a rope to assist them, it would be an act of grave negligence not to throw that rope,” the bishop wrote. “How many Muslims living among Christians will turn to them on the Day of Judgment and ask: ‘Why did you not throw me the rope? Why did you not make the truth known to me?'” The pastoral letter was issued as the Church prepares to mark the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi and follows Pope Leo XIV’s decision to designate a special Year of St Francis from January 2026 to January 2027. The document also coincides with the 60th anniversary celebrations of Nostra Aetate , the Second Vatican Council declaration on relations between the Church and non-Christian religions..