_____Letters__________________________________________________________
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When dialogue trumps evangelization
I could not agree more with Philip Lawler when he writes of Islam as a “false
religion” (Editorial, January 2002), and with Francis Maier when he warns
against naïveté in our assessment of Islam (“Thinking Clearly about Islam,”
January 2002). Certainly the many instances of intense and ongoing persecution
of Christians by Muslims, documented in the pages of CWR, highlight the terrible
truth that this leopard has no intention of changing its spots and must be
actively resisted. But the official line from the very highest echelons of our
Church seems quite different. For example, the Second Vatican Council said:
The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth . . . they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together, for the benefit of all mankind, social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom. (Nostra Aetate, 3)
And when one visits the web site of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for information on Islam he finds this quote from the Holy Father:
When I think of this spiritual heritage and the value it has for man and for society, its capacity of offering, particularly to the young, guidance for life, filling the gap left by materialism, and giving a reliable foundation to social and juridical organization, I wonder if it is not urgent, precisely today when Christians and Muslims have entered a new period of history, to recognize and promote together for the benefit of all men, “peace, liberty, social justice, and moral principles,” as the Council calls upon us to do.
I cannot help but consider that the only mandate the Catholic Church has from her Lord is, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19-20) To me this seems very different from the prevailing sentiment in the Church which seems to say, “Go therefore and dialogue with members of all nations and religions, that you might live in peace with them.”
And yet, as Pope Pius XI insisted:
. . . true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a solid foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority, which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.
To posit a stark choice between open warfare and mere dialogue with Islam is to erect a false dichotomy. The middle way of true charity is to seek to bring the Muslims to faith in Christ through active evangelization. But as it stands, the disparity between Jesus Christ’s mandate to evangelize all nations and the current seemingly exclusive emphasis on dialogue brings to mind the words of St. Paul: “If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Cor 14:8)
—David Palm of De Soto, Wisconsin
Real dialogue requires honesty. (And it is worth noticing that Pope John Paul II has made that point repeatedly during the past year.) If our approach to interfaith dialogue requires us to submerge all potentially contentious issues, for fear of offending our interlocutors, then we are being fundamentally dishonest, and this artificial “dialogue” is going nowhere. On the other hand, it is possible to disagree respectfully, and to recognize the virtues of a position with which one does not agree—in this case, to recognize the aspects of Islam which are admirable. The truths expressed by Pope Pius XI are not incompatible with the approach suggested by Pope John Paul II. (Whether the prevailing tendencies regarding interfaith dialogue are compatible with the thoughts of either pontiff is another question.) — The Editor
An “unhelpful” editorial
Your January 2002 issue
contains a number of interesting articles on the subject of Islam. In
particular, I found Nicholas Jubber’s report on the patchwork of struggling
Christian communities in the Near East both balanced and informative.
However, as someone responsible for disseminating “truth” through the printed word, I feel that I must take exception to the tone of your editorial in which you describe Islam as a “false” religion. Rather let us take our inspiration from Nostra Aetate in which the Catholic Church states that she “rejects nothing of what is true and holy in other religions.”
While this is not the same as saying that other religions are objectively “true,” your negative language, not least at a time when the Pope has invited leaders of other religions to Assisi to pray for peace, is unhelpful to say the least.
—Adrian Thacker of Catholic Truth Society, London, England
To say that a statement is “unhelpful” begs the question: To what, or to whom, is it unhelpful? As journalists we try to serve the cause of clarity. While we reject “nothing of what is true and holy” in Islam, we—like all who embrace the Catholic faith—do not and cannot recognize Islam as a true religion, without becoming Muslims. — The Editor
Islam and the Fatima message
Although sociologists of religion have noted a post-conciliar shift away from
the “ecclesial style” of an Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen vis-à-vis today’s more
“oblique” styles, two points, I submit, recommend Archbishop Sheen’s forthright
discussion of Islam and Fatima (“Mary and the Muslims,” January 2002)—a
discussion originally published 50 years ago: 1) its acknowledgement of the full
relevance of the Church’s prophetic tradition to contemporary concerns, and 2)
its reliance on a certain “sense of beauty” in interpreting that tradition. With
respect to the second point, we have Archbishop Sheen’s straightforward premise:
“Nothing ever happens out of heaven except with a finesse of details.”
On this premise, Archbishop Sheen argues that it is no accident that Mary’s apparitions in Portugal in 1917 were “signed” with the Muslim name “Fatima.” As is well known (or should be well known) Mohammed honored his daughter Fatima by hailing her as “the most blessed woman in paradise, after Mary.” Less well known (but Msgr. Sheen knew it) is the story of another woman named Fatima. This woman was the daughter of the commander of Muslim forces in Portugal. Betrothed to a Catholic, she decided to stay behind when her father’s army quit the country. Upon her marriage, her husband renamed their village home in her honor: Fatima. “Thus,” as Archbishop Sheen writes, “the place where Our Lady appeared in 1917 has a historical connection to Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.”
But what of the prophetic message itself: the message of Fatima? This message is a conditional prophecy to Russia, to be sure. But how is it related to Islam? In keeping with the great hope of the Russian theologian Vladimir Solovyev, the message envisions the reconciliation of Russia and Rome (not simply the neutralization of Communism). If this reconciliation does not take place, the Queen of the Prophets prophesied that Russia would “spread her errors” and do so until Mary’s Immaculate Heart triumphs in the sign of the reunion of the churches.
The “errors” are schisms: the 11th-century schism between Church and Church; the 19th-century “schism” between man and man (the ethnic cleansing of Muslim populations in the Caucasus); and the politico-atheistic “schism” engineered by the Communist Party in 1917, leading to (among other things) the 1944 deportation and genocide of the Muslims of the north Caucasus Mountains by Stalin.
We now see that 1917 not only marked the year of the onset of Soviet-style Communism; it marked the onset of Muslim Naqshbandi revolutionism, which against Russia called for the expulsion of all Christians from the territories governed by the Sharia, and for armed opposition against all Muslims who cooperate with “infidel” governments. In light of this complex problem, the message of Fatima is as relevant today as yesterday.
Archbishop Sheen, for his part, was convinced that “the blessed Virgin chose to be known as ‘Our Lady of Fatima’ as a pledge and sign of hope to the Muslim people, and as an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day accept her divine Son, too.”
—John F. Maguire of Berkeley, California
Outside the Church…
Regarding Father Samir Khalil Samir, SJ, in the article “Living with Islam”
(January 2002); he states that it is absolutely forbidden in Islam to change
one’s religion.
How many Catholics know that it is also forbidden in Catholicism to change to any other denomination or religion? See Lumen Gentium (II, 14): “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.”
—E. I. Carbone of Needham, Massachusetts
The problem with Islam
Raymond Wolkowski asks in Letters (January 2002): “What is it about the US that
makes so many Arabs and Muslims hostile to us, and ready to listen to bin
Laden’s ravings?” That is the wrong question.
The question Wolkowski should be asking is: “What is it about Arabs and Muslims that they are hostile to us, and ready to listen to bin Laden’s ravings?”
Now that we have the right question, the answer is pretty clear: It is belief in Islam. Islam is a religion that teaches that the world must be governed by the Islamic understanding of God. It is a totalitarian political theory as well as a religion, and Muslim hostility to the US is an aspect of Islamic totalitarianism.
Wolkowski believes that in the war of ideas, the best weapons are arguments. Islam teaches that in dealing with infidels, if arguments don’t persuade, it is acceptable to use swords. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see what use “ideas” are.
—Harmon Dow of Chicago, Illinois
Demythologizing the scholars
James Hitchcock is right about “The Weary Work of Demythologizing” (January
2002). The Gospel critics claim that all they are trying to do is discover “the
Jesus of history,” but all that history could tell us about the Gospels is that
they are a record of what the largest group of Jesus’ followers (that is, us)
believed about him. Anything else is conjecture—and no more “historical” than an
attempt to vote on which parts of Walden were really written by Thoreau (on the
assumption that a 19th-century farmer couldn’t possibly have written like a
21st-century New Ager) would be.
Some years ago a religion teacher in my parish told me that “the Church teaches” that Jesus could not possibly have seen himself as a suffering messiah, and that the Church did not look at Jesus that way until after his death. That she actually believed this was shocking, not least because this bit of “history” is based on the conjecture that Christianity started out as a revolutionary movement that ended up in abject failure.
Well, the “Books in Brief” section of the August 2001 Bible Review mentions that the Dead Sea Scrolls interpret Isaiah 53:3-5 to mean that the Messiah must suffer for his people. So apparently it is not impossible that a 1st-century Israelite might have believed in a suffering messiah. What is impossible is the assertion that Jesus could not have said some of the things that the Gospels say he said, because he lived in the 1st century. Obviously someone in the 1st century had to come up with those statements.
—Don Schenk of Allentown, Pennsylvania
Criticizing priests
In your otherwise excellent review I am tired of reading Diogenes, who
apparently finds it amusing to repeatedly mock and ridicule priests. Is this to
be considered his contribution for fostering new priestly vocations in these
difficult times?
Unfortunately not all priests live in full harmony with the Church and with their sacred commitments. One of the prominent figures of the Church of the last century, Blessed Josemaría Escrivá, reminds us accurately of the fact that any priest—whoever he might be—is however always another Christ (The Way, 66). In this perspective I am sad to say that many of Diogenes’ past articles have been highly uncatholic in their tone and content.
Yes, there is a crisis in the Church in many countries. And yes, many priests continue to contribute to it, but this should inspire us to pray more for the priests and for their sanctification, rather than to publicly ridicule them as a group or even under pseudonyms. After all, even more responsible for the present crises are those parents who educate their children to all, but not Gospel values, including the lack of respect and devotion to the hierarchical structure given to the Church by Our Lord.
—Father Tuomo T. Vimpari of Rome, Italy
Diogenes replies: My task in this magazine is to poke fun at the foibles of contemporary Catholicism. Since under ordinary circumstances priests are more identifiably Catholic than laymen, I suppose that they do come in for more than their share of attention in my column—not all of it negative, as this month’s effort shows. My friends who are priests do not take offense at my barbs, and I hope that is generally true of my readers. And I certainly hope that it is possible to enjoy a chuckle at someone’s expense, and still have the capacity and disposition to pray for him; otherwise none of my friends will be at my funeral.
Historical correction #1
I must say that I very much enjoyed your January 2002 issue and have found it
quite informative. I couldn’t help but notice, however, a statement of yours in
the “World Watch” article on Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s being invited to preach
to the Royal family which seemed a bit off. It claimed that “Queen Elizabeth
became the first British monarch since the 16th century to take part in a
Catholic service.” This would seem to ignore the 17th-century Stuart King James
II. James II, who ruled England from 1685-88, had converted to Catholicism while
he was still the Duke of York, and remained Catholic for the rest of his
life—including during his short reign. Indeed his Catholicism was one of the
prime factors that led to his overthrow in the Revolution of 1688.
—Tom Cole
Manassas, Virginia
Once again we are reminded that CWR readers are an unusually learned group, and likely to correct our errors. (And there is more; see below.) For this we are grateful. — The Editor
Historical correction #2
You report Queen Elizabeth II to be “the first British monarch since the 16th
century to take part in a Catholic service.”
In 1920 a king of England and a king of Spain heard Mass together for the first
time since the days of Catherine of Aragon. The kings were George V and Alfonso
XIII, the occasion the Requiem Mass and funeral of the exiled Empress Eugenie of
France, the place the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Michael in Farnborough,
Hampshire.
This was not, however, a first. Edward VII attended the Requiem for the King of Portugal at St. James, Spanish Place, a good while before.
—Dom Cuthbert Brogan, OSB of Farnborough, Hampshire, England