The Vatican´s New Realism about Islam
The Vatican´s New Realism about Islam
By Robert Spencer
October 31, 2003
The semi-official Jesuit magazine La Civiltà
Cattolica has done nothing less than shock the
world by publishing an absolutely scathing
criticism of the mistreatment that Christians
suffer in Islamic societies. Why so shocking? It´s
a sharp break with Pope John Paul II´s
long-standing policy toward Islam, which some have
characterized as «dialogue to the point of
extremism.« Nothing is published in La Civiltà
Cattolica without the approval of the Vatican
Secretary of State — so this blistering article
presumably corresponds to the views of some very
high placed Vatican officials, if not the ailing
Pope himself.
The Civiltà Cattolica piece represents the first
indication that any Catholic Church officials
recognize the dimensions of the religious conflict
that jihadists are waging against Christians and
others around the world. Up to now the signals
have all been in the other direction: the Pope has
been such a relentless proponent of dialogue with
Islam that Rome´s criticism of the persecution of
Christians in Muslim countries has been muted..
Civiltà Cattolica also counters the dozens of
misleadingly incomplete analyses of jihad that
Muslim advocacy groups have used to befuddle the
public over the last few years. Jihad, it points
out, «has two meanings, both of which are equally
essential and must not be dissociated, as if one
could exist without the other. In its primary
meaning, jihad indicates the ‘effort´ that the
Muslim must undertake to be faithful to the
precepts of the Koran and so improve his
‘submission´ (islam) to Allah; in the second, it
indicates the ‘effort´ that the Muslim must
undertake to ‘fight in the way of Allah,´ which
means fighting against the infidels and spreading
Islam throughout the world. Jihad is a precept of
the highest importance, so much so that it is
sometimes counted among the fundamental precepts
of Islam, as its sixth ‘pillar.´« The only meaning
of jihad you will get from American Muslim
spokesmen is the first. Is there some reason why
they don´t want you to know that radicals are
acting on the second all over the world today?
Contrary to another prevailing myth, that
Christian-Muslim enmity began with the Christian
Crusades, the article states: «All of Islamic
history is dominated by the idea of the conquest
of the Christian lands of Western Europe and of
the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was
Constantinople.« Warfare was initiated by the
Muslim armies that swept into Syria and other
Christian areas of the Middle East within just a
few years of the death of Muhammad in 632. The
first Crusade wasn´t called until 1095.
«In reality,« says Civiltà Cattolica, «for almost
a thousand years Europe was under constant threat
from Islam, which twice put its survival in
serious danger.« Now, in its radical, terrorist
form, it is doing so again — but up until now no
one at the Vatican, and precious few elsewhere,
have taken much notice..."
"...What about Islamic tolerance? Another myth.
«According to Muslim law,« Civiltà Cattolica notes
correctly (and courageously), «Christians, Jews,
and the followers of other religions assimilated
to Christianity and Judaism (the ‘Sabeans´) who
live in a Muslim state belong to an inferior
social order,... "
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