Lay-run TavNet forms a 300-member underground community giving ex-Muslims sacraments, formation, and fellowship in the Catholic faith.
Newsroom (20/02/2026 Gaudium Press ) A new lifeline has quietly emerged for converts from Islam who have found their way into the Catholic Church but remain adrift between two worlds. The “St. Nicholas Tavelić Network for Morisco Catholics” — or TavNet — is a burgeoning lay-run community now numbering roughly 300 members. Founded in 2024, the group has become an underground network offering pastoral care, sacraments, and formation to ex-Muslims longing for a fully Catholic home.
Named after St. Nicholas Tavelić, a 14th-century Franciscan martyred for preaching the Gospel in Jerusalem, TavNet serves those living in Muslim-majority societies — and even in Western countries — where ordinary parish structures struggle to reach them. The network’s mission, according to its founders, is to ground converts in authentic Catholic teaching while articulating the faith in ways that resonate within Islamic cultural frameworks.
Born From Isolation — And Faith
Hasan, a 29-year-old former Shiite Muslim and one of TavNet’s founders, described the network’s rise as both a necessity and an act of providence. “The experiences of converts from Islam are quite unique,” he said. What began as an informal online group grew into a structured missionary network after encountering widespread neglect and isolation among new Catholic converts. “We are effectively the only group providing a specifically Catholic, resource-based approach to supporting such people,” Hasan added.
TavNet’s origins trace back to small circles of shared prayer and online fellowship, assisted by a missionary priest who was stunned by how many converts could not access the sacraments. The founders later received encouragement from Pope Francis himself, who wrote to them acknowledging the hardships Muslim converts often face — including exclusion from local Catholic communities.
The network’s official launch in Canterbury, England, in August 2024, marked a turning point. Since then, TavNet has expanded globally, with members undergoing regular formation and spiritual guidance supported by priests, donors, and lay volunteers.
Conversion and Its Hidden Costs
For many converts, the trials of embracing Catholicism begin not with governments or clerics, but at home. Hasan noted that “family is often the greatest barrier,” and that Western diaspora communities can pose challenges as complex as those in Muslim-majority countries. Young women, for example, may struggle to attend catechism classes or RCIA without arousing suspicion at home. Some delay conversion until after university, while others face ostracism or the need to leave their families altogether.
TavNet offers spiritual and emotional support for such converts, emphasizing reverence for parents and forgiveness for those who persecute them. The group takes St. Stephen, the Church’s first martyr, as a model of charity in suffering. “We are not here to condemn,” Hasan said. “We are here to pray for those who reject or misunderstand us.”
Yet obstacles also arise from within the Church itself. Hasan spoke candidly about the disillusionment some new converts feel when they encounter lax moral attitudes or watered-down catechesis. “From a devout Muslim’s perspective, it looks like confusion,” he remarked. “What draws people to the faith is deep fervor — communities showing Catholicism visibly and properly lived.”
Preserving Structure and Spiritual Clarity
For many Muslims, the disciplined rhythm of daily prayer forms the heart of their faith. Losing that structure after conversion can leave a painful void. TavNet aims to fill it by encouraging its members to take up the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Rosary, and regular devotions that preserve a sense of sacred routine. “We try to help people keep that religious structure in the Catholic faith — to make the transition as seamless as possible,” Hasan explained.
The network’s approach is unapologetically orthodox. “We want honest dialogue with Muslims, but not toothless conversation,” Hasan said. “Too much interreligious work today feels like tea parties for their own sake.” TavNet, he emphasized, fosters respectful but forthright discussions about theological differences while affirming areas of shared truth.
Testimonies of Conversion
Many of TavNet’s members share experiences that blend intellect, suffering, and grace. Hasan himself was once a zealous Shiite scholar who studied Christianity in order to refute it — until a moment of personal revelation during midnight Mass in 2018 changed everything. “I experienced an immediate certainty that this Jesus I had studied was here,” he recalled. “It was the presence of God — familiar yet infinitely more profound.”
For Daniel, 24, a British member of Iranian descent, the path ran through philosophy. His study of Stoicism and modern thinkers such as Jordan Peterson led him to Christianity, and eventually to the Catholic Church. “The Rosary changed everything,” he said. “That’s when I truly converted.” He and many like him revere the Blessed Virgin as a spiritual bridge — one revered in both Islam and Christianity. TavNet’s members invoke Our Lady of Fatima as their patroness, calling themselves “children of Fatima,” evoking the legend of the Muslim woman whose name graced the Portuguese town where Mary appeared.
Both men identify the Eucharist as the heart of their new life in Christ. “It is the sacrament above all others,” Hasan affirmed. “Nothing compares.”
A Global and Mystical Movement
Reports of Muslim converts experiencing dreams or visions of Christ have become common across TavNet’s communities, from North Africa to Europe. Hasan said that once he dismissed such claims as apocryphal, but now estimates that “more than half of TavNet’s members” have experienced such encounters firsthand. “It is happening everywhere,” he said, naming cities from London to Cairo, Sarajevo to Riyadh. “Especially among the young.”
Still, he cautioned that the revival is not without danger. “The renewal of Christianity is being politicized,” he warned. “We are no longer in Christendom — it is gone. We are living in a corpse inhabited by a different spirit, not the Spirit of Christ. We, and the Muslim newcomers, are competing to replace that spirit with something else.”
Daniel echoed this warning, emphasizing charity over ideology. “Muslims are not our enemies,” he said. “Our duty is love — to pray for them, to lead them to truth, never to use faith as a political weapon. For us, it is Christ first, charity first, not politics first.”
Prayer, Fasting, and the Hidden Church
TavNet relies entirely on grassroots efforts: prayer, fasting, and private donations. Its members ask fellow Catholics to support their mission through spiritual solidarity — especially the Rosary — and by directing potential converts toward their growing network.
Their work, conducted largely in secret, may never headline global missionary initiatives. But within small, candle-lit chapels and online catechism circles, the faith once smothered in fear quietly flowers again.
“We have found in Christ both truth and home,” Hasan said. “And in TavNet, we have found each other.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from NCRegister
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