VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict led the world’s Catholics into Easter on Saturday at a Vatican service where he baptized a Muslim-born convert who is one of Italy’s most famous and controversial journalists.

The German-born pontiff, marking the third Easter season of his pontificate, began the service in the atrium of a darkened St Peter’s Basilica where he carved the Greek letters Alpha and Omega on a large candle.

The basilica became a sea of flickering flames as thousands of faithful inside lit candles before the lights were turned on in a ritual symbolizing the darkness in the world after Christ’s death and the light of the resurrection.

Easter, the most important day in the Church’s liturgical calendar, commemorates Christ rising from the dead three days after he was crucified.

In his sermon, Benedict wove a connection between the resurrection of Christ and the sacrament of baptism, the initiation rite of Christianity.

"…from the abyss of death he was able to rise to life. Now he raises us from death to true life. This is exactly what happens in baptism," the pope said.

The pope traditionally baptizes newborns on January 1 and adult converts to Catholicism on Easter eve.

One of the seven adults he baptized on Saturday night was Magdi Allam, 55, an Egyptian-born journalist who, as deputy director of the leading newspaper Corriere della Sera, is one of Italy’s best-known intellectuals.

Allam, a fierce critic of Islamic extremism and a strong supporter of Israel, is protected by a police escort because of threats he has received.

WELL-KEPT SECRET

His conversion to Christianity was a well-kept secret, disclosed by the Vatican in a statement less than an hour before the Easter eve service started.

"For the Catholic Church, each person who asks to receive baptism after a deep personal search, a fully free choice and adequate preparation, has a right to receive it," it said.

Allam defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.

The Vatican statement announcing Allam was joining Catholicism said all newcomers were "equally important before God’s love and welcome in the community of the Church."

Allam, who has been living in Italy for 35 years, has said he was never a very devout Muslim. Still, his conversion to Christianity came as a surprise.

"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters.

The Easter eve service was the first of three at which the pope presides. On Sunday he will celebrate a mass and then deliver his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing and message.

Two months of success ruined the Baltimore Orioles.

In July 1996, when Camden Yards was the jewel of major-league stadiums and the team carried the second-highest payroll in baseball, Orioles owner Peter Angelos started to veto trades arranged by his general manager, Pat Gillick. The first few were minor. Then Angelos got bold and nixed deals that would have shipped Bobby Bonilla and David Wells for prospects. And wouldn’t you know, the Orioles got hot, won 38 of their final 61, nabbed the American League wild card. Were it not for Jeffrey Maier and his sticky fingers, who knows what would have come of the ALCS?

Whatever the case, it emboldened Angelos, a dangerous prospect seeing as he already toted around the ego of a lawyer who settled nine-figure cases. And it doesn’t take one of those amateur CSI kits to find his fingerprints all over the degeneration of the franchise from one of baseball’s proudest to one with 10 consecutive losing seasons.

So it’s a welcome sight, then, to see star pitcher Erik Bedard traded to Seattle for five players following more limbo than a bad wedding. Whether the holdup occurred because of Angelos – the centerpiece of the deal, Adam Jones, spilled the beans on the forthcoming deal, reportedly much to Angelos’ dismay – is irrelevant. Because were Angelos truly meddling in proper fashion, the prospect of the deal – trading a 28-year-old left-hander who may well win a Cy Young Award or two – would have scared him into pulling out his inkpad, dipping his stamp in it and affixing DENIED onto anything Andy MacPhail proposed.

MacPhail is the Orioles’ latest general manager – Larry Fortensky to Angelos’ Elizabeth Taylor. Since Angelos bought the team for $173 million in 1993, he has shuttled through Roland Hemond, Gillick, Frank Wren, Syd Thrift, Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan, allowing none a proper chance to run the franchise.

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