"If Islam is a good religion in itself, as you seem to teach, why did we become Catholic?" the converts ask Francis in the letter. "Do not your words question the soundness of the choice we made at the risk of our lives?"

The letter continued to gain signatures over the weekend, approaching 3,700 by Monday afternoon.

The letter asks the Pope frank questions on the hot-button issues of Islam and immigration, questions that posed at great risk to those doing the asking. Sharia law forbids conversion by Muslims to other faiths and it is considered by many Muslim countries to be a crime punishable by death.

The letter came after years of attempts by the letter's promoters to communicate with Pope Francis on the subject, organizers say. It was originally composed in French and posted Christmas Day, first with just 10 signatures at the outset. Those behind the letter aim to present it to Pope Francis when it reaches a significant number of signatures.

The signatories consist of former Muslims and their friends who have connected via social networks for associations that support ex-Muslims or evangelization of Muslims.

Organizers are not commenting on how many Muslim converts to Catholicism have signed the letter, though they say the names of the ex-Muslim signatories and the associations to which they belong would be revealed to the Pope only, in the event he should ask.

"As we said in the presentation of our letter," they said, in a statement provided to LifeSiteNews, "the ex-Muslims, in general, knowing themselves condemned to death by Islam, avoid making themselves known."

The letter's organizers told LifeSiteNews it is "a deep mystery" to them why Pope Francis is so accommodating to Islam.

They are not ready to leave the Catholic Church over Francis' approach to Islam, they say.

Instead, "We will continue to suffer and ask God's forgiveness for him, hoping again for a pope according to His heart."

Everyone has a stake in this
The open letter is available online for "former Muslims who became Catholics and their friends" to sign. It differs in this respect from the Correctio filialis published last fall, which is signed by some 250 Catholic clergy and scholars charging the pope with propagating heresies about "marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments."

"We believe that it is not necessary to be a recognized theologian to recognize the demonic nature of Islam," a representative of the group of former Muslims told LifeSiteNews, "but that anyone of a sense, without even having faith, can understand that [one] cannot serve both the Church and Islam."

The letter asks the Pope specifically about his teaching on Islam in Evangelii Gaudium (paragraphs 252 and 253), in which Francis writes in part, that "authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence."

"You do not like to beat around the bush," the letter writers say, "and neither do we, so allow us to say frankly that we do not understand your teaching about Islam."

"Because it does not account for the fact that Islam came after Christ, and so is, and can only be, an Antichrist," they continue (see 1 John 2:22), "and one of the most dangerous because it presents itself as the fulfillment of Revelation (of which Jesus would have been only a prophet)."

'Catholic violence?'
The letter also takes issue with Francis' controversial comments comparing Islamic violence with individual violent acts committed by some Catholics.

The Pope made the statements on the papal plane in August 2016 in answer to a journalist's inquiry as to why he never speaks of Islamic violence. The journalist's question came in the wake of the brutal murder of French priest...

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