KUALA LUMPUR: Archbishop Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam today accepted the public apology by the Al-Islam magazine for a May 2009 special report and said no legal action will be taken against them.

“I am happy that the editor and journalists of Al-Islam have made the apology on their website and promised to print the apology on their forthcoming issue,” the head of the archdiocese here said in a statement faxed to The Malaysian Insider.

He also thanked them for their “quick response”.

“I accept the apology and no legal action will be taken against Al-Islam on this ‘matter’,” added Pakiam, who is also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Pakiam had held a media conference four days ago to express his outrage at the delay by the Attorney General (AG) in responding to a police report against the Islamic magazine and its two reporters who wrote about their undercover exploits inside a Catholic church published in May last year.

The duo claimed they were investigating a rumour about a Muslim teen who had converted to Christianity and had gone to the church to check.

While there, they took part in the Holy Communion, a ceremony central to the Catholic faith.

Catholics believe that the bread - represented by a thin white circular wafer – and wine undergoes a spiritual transformation and becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

They were highly offended by the journalists’ recounting of how they had eaten the wafer, spat it out and photographed it.

The archbishop recently found out the AG had dropped charges against the duo and the magazine, owned by a subsidiary of Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia, and urged him to rethink the decision for the sake of maintaining the fragile state of Malaysia’s religious harmony.

Pakiam said he would stop lobbying the government to prosecute Al-Islam as long as the magazine apologised.

The magazine carried the editor’s apology on its website the very next day, explaining it had wanted to do so earlier but feared there may be legal consequences.

Pakiam today assured them that “the Catholic community is appeased.”

“I extend my peace and goodwill to the editor and journalists,” he said.

He added that a “peaceful demonstration” planned at Dataran Merdeka here for March 15 has also been called off.

[Reported in The Malaysia Insider]