How Will Rome Face Mecca?
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21921
By Joseph D'Hippolito
April 6, 2006
One of the Catholic Church's most controversial figures inflamed public
debate in Italy with a typically off-handed comment -- and inadvertently
exposed the Vatican's problems in crafting a coherent, comprehensive
response to Islamic imperialism.
Cardinal Renato Martino -- the president of the Pontifical Council for
Justice and Peace and the Vatican's former ambassador to the United
Nations -- said that the Italian government should allow the Koran to be
taught during the hour mandated for Catholic religious instruction.
"If there are 100 Muslim children in a school, I don't see why they
shouldn't be taught their religion," Martino said in a press conference
March 9. "If we said 'no' until we saw equivalent treatment for the
Christian minorities in Muslim countries, I would say that we were placing
ourselves on their level."
Martino's comments came as campaigning in Italy's April 9 general election
entered its final push. Two significant issues are the effect of massive
Muslim immigration on Italian society and the ensuing place for
government-sponsored Catholic religious education, mandated by the 1929
concordat between the Vatican and Italy that was renewed in 1984.
Two days before Martino's press conference, the president of Italy's largest
Muslim group -- the Community of Islamic Organizations in Italy, which
controls that country's mosques and has connections to the Muslim
Brotherhood -- asked the government to substitute Muslim instruction for
Catholic instruction where appropriate.
That president, Mohammed Nour Dachan, also refused to sign a document in
which Muslims pledged to accept Italy's constitution, denounce terrorism and
recognize Israel's right to exist. His organization demands Islamic schools,
Islamic banks and clerical supervision of textbooks.
"The impression was the Cardinal Martino, in the name of 'dialogue,' was
uncritically accepting Nour Dachan's request for a separate place for Islam
in Italy," wrote Sandro Magister, who has covered the Vatican for more than
25 years for the Milan magazine, L'Espresso.
Enhancing the controversy are remarks Pope Benedict XVI made while greeting
Morocco's new ambassador to the Vatican on Feb. 20. During the audience, the
pope advocated religious freedom "in a reciprocal manner in all societies,"
a reference to oppressed Christian minorities in Muslim nations.
"But for Cardinal Martino," Magister wrote, "this reciprocity would seem to
be irrelevant."
Reaction was swift and fierce. Wrote Ernesto Galli della Loggia in a
front-page editorial for the Milan daily Corriere della Sera on March 10:
"The words of Cardinal Martino on a host of highly important questions
constitute a position clearly antithetical to the one repeatedly and
vigorously marked out by Benedict XVI. One could even say that these words
form a sort of embroidered design of a real and proper anti-Ratzingerian
manifesto."
Another front-page editorial in Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian
bishops' conference, stated March 11 that Martino's proposal contradicted
Italy's constitution and Catholicism's place in Italian culture.
Martino was so embarrassed that he had to appear on Vatican Radio on March
10 to control the damage. On March 13, the Paris daily Le Figaro quoted
Martino as saying that his off-hand proposal was a "sign of respect" toward
Islam that would encourage Muslim nations to relieve persecution of
Christian minorities.
[ed. Islamic nations won't do that - instead they will see it as a sign of
weakness and the green light to build even more mosques (which are a symbol
of cultural conquest, not just worship) and encroach even further on
your society...]
Nevertheless, the Italian bishops' conference continued its campaign. On
March 16, Avvenire published an overview of European religious education by
Carlo Cardia, a non-Catholic professor of ecclesiastical law and a
consultant for a major left-wing party. Cardia concluded thus:
"There does not exist in Italy an organized Islamic confession that is
recognized by the state. There are various groups, which are not
infrequently in conflict among themselves. And this prevents the
implementation of teaching that would not be based on any community,
institution, or confessional hierarchy.
"And then, one cannot ignore the potential conflict between some of the
features of Islamism in its present state and fundamental questions for our
society - the matter of human rights, beginning with religious freedom, the
principles of equality between men and women, the monogamous structure of
matrimony - which constitute the most valuable heritage of the
secular-Christian tradition of Italy and the West.
"At a moment when Islamic fundamentalism constitutes a concrete reality in
many countries from which immigration comes into Europe, it would be a
mistake not to take note of the risk that a hasty legitimization in the
sensitive channels of the schools could let in subjects capable of
transmitting other messages, creating ambiguous connections, and placing at
risk values that are fundamental for civil life.
"These are some of the obstacles that make an organic presence of Islam in
the Italian schools unfeasible and not worthy of entertaining."
On March 20 Cardinal Camilio Ruini, papal vicar for the Archdiocese of Rome,
addressed the conference's spring session:
"In particular, (it is necessary) that there not be any conflict in the
content with respect to our constitution, for example with regard to civil
rights, from religious freedom to the equality between man and woman to
marriage. Concretely, until now there has been no representative body for
Islam that would be capable of establishing such an accord with the Italian
state. Furthermore, we must assure ourselves that the teaching of the
Islamic religion would not give rise to socially dangerous indoctrination."
Martino, whom Magister described as "a cardinal out of control," has a
well-deserved reputation as a self-promoting loose cannon. One month before
the invasion of Iraq, Martino blamed the West for the Muslim world's plight:
"Not only the United States but the entire West should make an examination
of conscience of how we oppress the rest of the world -- unkept promises,
spreading ways of life that are not moral or acceptable to the rest of the
world (Reuters, Feb. 6, 2003)."
When American forces captured Saddam Hussein, Martino offered these
thoughts:
"I feel pity to see this man destroyed, being treated like a cow as they
checked his teeth (Dec. 16, 2003)."
Six days before commenting on Muslim education, Martino talked about his
recent trip to Cuba, where he met Fidel Castro:
"Castro knows the social doctrine of the church. The times when the church
was persecuted in Cuba are water under the bridge (ANSA news agency, March
3)."
But Martino's most recent comments also reflect the weight of outmoded
policies and attitudes that Catholic leaders must shed as Benedict forges
his own policy regarding Islam.
Pope John Paul II viewed Islam as a useful ally against Communism and
secularism. Front Page Magazine's "The Vatican's Pro-Saddam Tilt?" also
chronicled how the late pope sought to engage Islam to promote world peace
through ecumenism, even at the expense of Christian minorities in Muslim
nations. But Benedict XVI subtly announced a radical change from the outset.
At his installation Mass, the new pope welcomed fellow Catholics, other
Christians and Jews in his greeting, but not Muslims. Later, two selected
speakers delivered intercessory prayers for oppressed Christians. One prayer
was in Arabic.
However, Benedict and his bishops must confront what French historian Alain
Besancon called the "indulgent ecumenicism" that dominates the Christian
response to Islam, whether through Martino's superficial multiculturalism or
through the wistful yearning for traditionalist transcendence that Besancon
described in Commentary magazine:
"Contributing to the partiality toward Islam is an underlying
dissatisfaction with modernity, and with our liberal, capitalist
individualistic arrangements.... Alarmed by the ebbing of religious faith in
the Christian West, and particularly in Europe, these writers cannot but
admire Muslim devoutness.... Surely, they reason, it is better to believe in
something than in nothing, and since these Muslims believe in something,
they must believe in the same thing we do."
Influencing that attitude was the work of European scholar Louis Massignon,
who popularized the ideas of the Koran as a kind of biblical revelation and
of Muslims as being among Abraham's spiritual children.
"An entire literature favorable to Islam has grown up in Europe," Besancon
wrote, "much of it the work of Catholic priests under the sway of
Massignon's ideas."
Europe is not the only place where such indulgent ecumenism holds sway.
Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former Archbishop of Boston, created
controversy in November 2002 when he bowed toward Mecca and prayed to Allah
in a suburban mosque during a Ramadan service. Afterward, he told the
congregants:
"I feel very much at home with my fellow fundamentalists here, who are
convinced that God must be at the center of our lives (Boston Globe, Nov.
25, 2002)."
Such sentimentality, however, ignores the irreconcilable differences between
Christianity, Judaism and Islam that Besancon described in his Commentary
article, "What Kind Of Religion is Islam?"
Though all three faiths are monotheistic, Islam rejects the doctrines of
atonement and redemption that define Christianity and Judaism. Moreover, no
concept of a covenant between God and humanity exists in Islam. Instead,
Allah decrees his law "by means of a unilateral pact, in an act of sublime
condescension (that) precludes any notion of imitating God as is urged in
the Bible," Besancon wrote.
Islam also rejects the Christian doctrines of original sin and the necessity
of mediation between God and humanity. In the Koran, Jesus "appears... out
of place and out of time, without reference to the landscape of Israel,"
Besancon wrote.
Most importantly, Judeo-Christian and Muslim concepts of divinity revolve
around one irreconcilable difference:
"Although Muslims like to enumerate the 99 names of God, missing from the
list, but central to the Jewish and even more so to the Christian conception
of God, is 'Father' - i.e., a personal god capable of a reciprocal and
loving relation with men," Besancon wrote. "The one God of the Koran, the
God Who demands submission is a distant God; to call him 'Father' would be
an anthropomorphic sacrilege."
Sentimental ecumenism and John Paul II's geopolitical agenda also prevented
the Catholic Church from effectively confronting barbarism in Allah's name.
Oriana Fallaci excoriated the church in a 2002 editorial in Corriere della
Sera. Some excerpts:
"I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop
(Hilarion Capucci), one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man
who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in
the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to...plant himself in front
of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre
the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them 'martyrs who go to
their deaths as to a party.'
"I find it shameful that L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Pope--a
Pope who not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the
Jews--accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the
millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this newspaper
denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have numbers
tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves, to not be
exterminated again [parentheses in original].
"I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus Christ (a Jew without whom
they would all be unemployed), the priests of our parishes or Social Centers
or whatever they are flirt with the assassins of those in Jerusalem who
cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some eggs without being blown up
[parentheses in original].
"I find it shameful that they are on the side of the very ones who
inaugurated terrorism, killing us on airplanes, in airports, at the
Olympics, and who today entertain themselves by killing western journalists.
By shooting them, abducting them, cutting their throats, decapitating them.
In her most recently translated work, The Force of Reason, Fallaci blamed
the Catholic Church's lax policies on immigration and ecumenism for the
disintegration of Europe's identity:
"This Catholic Church...gets on so well with Islam because not few of its
priests and prelates are the first collaborators of Islam. The first
traitors. This Catholic Church, without whose imprimatur the Euro-Arab
dialogue could neither have begun nor gone ahead for 30 years. This Catholic
Church without which the Islamization of Europe, the degeneration of Europe
in Eurabia, could never have developed. This Catholic Church...remains
silent even when the crucifix gets insulted derided, expelled from the
hospitals. This Catholic Church...never roars against (Muslims') polygamy
and wife-repudiation and slavery...."
Even Benedict's call for reciprocity fails to address adequately the
totalitarian nature of Islamic societies, as the ordeal of Afghan convert
Abdul Rahman and Algeria's parliament illustrate.
On March 21, Algeria passed a law forbidding members of religions other than
Islam to seek converts or to worship in public without a license. Violators
would face imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of up to 10,000
Euros.
If Benedict wishes to develop an effective response to Islam, he must do
more than demand reciprocity. He must forthrightly challenge the entrenched
attitudes Catholic leaders have regarding Islam. He should start by publicly
disciplining an obnoxious cardinal who can never resist a camera, a
microphone or a notepad.
--
Jim
http://www.geocities.com/anti_multiculture/index.html
Unite Against Multiculturalism!
"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up the Traitors!"
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