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Prefers Belloc
The two articles on Islam in Dossier (“The New Rise of Islam,” August/September 1999) were to me superficial, in that neither attempted to trace the origins of what was in the 7th century and is again today by far the most serious threat to the Catholic Church.

I suppose one cannot expect Spanish writers to be familiar with the work of Hilaire Belloc. Nowhere in either article is there the faintest hint that the religion launched by Mohammed was a Christian heresy.
May I suggest that you now commission an article based on Belloc’s The Great Heresies (1938) republished in 1991 by Tan Books. I know of no other writing which accounts so well for the origins and nature of this heresy, and its subsequent worldwide success.

—Martin Blake
Glastonbury, Somerset
England

Belloc’s analysis is certainly brilliant and insightful; we certainly would not discourage anyone from reading it. But the purpose of our Dossier was somewhat different: to show how Islam is understood today by its own believers.

—The Editor

A greater threat than Communism
If memory serves, it was the late Cardinal Siri whose sage comments and observations on the passing scene were much sought after by Italian journalists. One such event was the demise of Soviet Communism. When asked to comment, Cardinal Siri responded that he always knew that if he lived long enough he would see the collapse of Soviet Communism, because it was in the long run an unworkable system that, for all its early advances and apparent success, was doomed to wear itself out. And as much of a scourge as that system was on the largely Christian West, the cardinal continued, he had always regarded Islam as the far greater threat to Western religion and culture.

Islam is not a clannish, exclusive religion like Judaism, whose adherents God had quarantined from the contamination of paganism’s perversions, in order to protect and preserve the revelation of himself and his plans for man’s redemption. Nor is it like Christianity, which embodies the fulfillment of that revelation and those plans in the person of his incarnate son, Jesus of Nazareth, the anointed one and savior of the human race, whom his followers are charged with proclaiming to every nation, race, and tongue.

But Mohammed admired these “People of the Book” as he noticed how disintegrated were his own Arab people, the sons of Ishmael and Esau, themselves descendants of the People of the Book (even though there was no Book begun until the time of the Exodus).

Those people—even the very mixed peoples of Christianity—have survived, he reasoned, because of their monotheism and their scriptures. If the Arabs could be thus organized, inspired, disciplined, and motivated in a respectably religious fashion, he could veritably conquer the world—for Allah, of course. And that has already been attempted more than once in European history: by the Ottoman Turks and the Moors in Iberia.

But let us make no mistake about it, however respectable the tenets of Islam may appear to be, to the militant, “fundamentalist” Muslim, Allah is the god of jihad—the god of war, conquest, slavery, submission, and death to the “infidel.” And today’s primary “evangelist” of this god is the millionaire terrorist, Osama bin Laden, whose following grows daily.

—Father Edward Dillon, OFM
New York, New York

Defending Pope Pius XII
Philip F. Lawler deserves congratulations for his excellent defense of Pope Pius XII (“Libel That Lasts,” July 1999).

It is unfortunate that Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center continues deliberately to mislead the public about Pius XII and the existence of 11 volumes of documents from the Vatican’s wartime archives, which can be found with the French title, Actes et documents du Saint Siege relatifs a la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

Until his death in August 1944, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Luigi Maglione, frequently instructed the Vatican’s diplomatic representatives in many Axis and Nazi-occupied countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. After the cardinal’s death his deputy, Msgr. Domenico Tardini, continued to send out similar instructions.

Instead of sympathizing with Nazi Germany, the 11 volumes establish that the Pope actually assisted the Soviet Union during World War II. In response to diplomatic appeals made by President Roosevelt in 1941, Pius XII gave American Catholics permission to support the extension of the Lend-Lease program to the Soviet Union. Of course, Rabbi Hier never mentions the fact that the Pope in 1940 acted as an intermediary between a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government.

Since Rabbi Hier and his fellow revisionists remain unimpressed by these materials, I suggest that they visit the New York Public Library, which has many wartime Jewish newspapers on microfilm.

In smearing Pope Pius XII, I would note that Rabbi Hier’s disingenuous tactics of shifting the burden of proof and ignoring any evidence that contradicts his preconceived theories are also used by anti-Semites who claim that the Holocaust never happened.

—Dimitri Cavalli
Bronx, New York

Pointing fingers, hiding guilt
You wonder why Rabbi Hier would make the libelous claims about the “silence” of Pope Pius XII (Editorial, July 1999). It is my belief that the Jews are pointing fingers at others, hiding their guilt because so many of them knew what was going on but—for whatever reason—did nothing.

In Germany in 1933, the German Jews numbered 525,000, including leaders in literature, medicine, science, and finance. For the most part they wanted to be thought of as Germans; they were proud to be German Jews. When Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of the most powerful and respected leaders of the American Jewish community, organized a rally in New York to protest the Nazi’s treatment of Jews, he received a message from leading German rabbis to “butt out.” The German rabbis implied that the American Jews were doing this for their own purposes, and in doing so were destroying the Germany that the German Jews loved.

According to the July/August issue of American Heritage:

In 1933, 37,000 Jews fled Germany, but in the relative calm of the next year, 16,000 returned. To be fair, one must understand that at the time no one anticipated that the Nazi persecution would lead to the Holocaust. The actions of the German government were generally understood by both victims and bystanders as a return to the sort of persecutions of prior centuries, not as steps on the road to genocide. The Jews, as they have in the past, hunkered down to ride out the storm.

For the Jews to think they have a monopoly on suffering or a copyright on the word “holocaust” is wrong; they should be reaching out to all those who are suffering similar “holocausts” in the Balkans, Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia, and other places in the world. My own Irish ancestors were systematically decimated in Britain’s “ethnic cleansing” of Ireland, dying not in the ovens of the death camps, but in the ditches of Kilala and Skibbereen. And they were eliminated for the same reason: their race and religion.

I have always considered myself a “Jewish Hawk” until they started objecting to the cross that had been erected at Auschwitz, honoring the non-Jews that died there. Nine million non-Jewish civilians were also murdered by the Nazis, as well as three million Soviet prisoners of war.

—Jerome Kavaney
Fairchild, Wisconsin

Anti-Christian prejudice
Your editorial on the libel that lasts points to a sadly overlooked reality that the illusion of ecumenism at any price has fostered. That illusion says that we will simply ignore history—and in fact reality—and proclaim that knotty matters of spiritual and religious differences are not important. All of this to achieve a false sense of democratic “brotherhood” the exact content of which is difficult to figure out. Thus the reality of Talmudic Judaism—which detests Christianity, its founder, Jesus, his mother and the Church—is allowed to defame and slander with virtual immunity. The reality is simple, Rabbinic Talmudic Judaism loathes Christianity. This contempt appears in the Talmud, and lives on in history. Christianity and Christians understood this 500 years ago.

Rabbi Hier doesn’t get the facts right because Rabbi Hier has no interest in getting the facts right. Where is the outrage being voiced in the Jewish community over this slander? If it exists I am unaware of it. The ecumenical attitude is apparently to be struck on one side of the coin only.

Try in your wildest imaginings to envision this kind of invective being poured out from Catholic to Jew. The return fire from all quarters would be withering. The matter can never be put to rest until it can be said in all honesty that many in the Jewish community are outright anti-Christian bigots. Apparently, for historical reasons emanating from World War II and the appeasement approach of a false ecumenism, this simple truth cannot be said, rendering the situation hopeless for the time being.

—Gavin Stevens
Memphis, Tennessee

What silence?
Thank you for yet another fine editorial by Philip F. Lawler. Considering the fact that Pope Pius XII saved so many Jews from death (my World Book Encyclopedia puts the figure at 800,000, at least) these accusations against him are, at worst, demonic; at best, insane.

Of course, it is perfectly just to point out that it was not only Jews who were killed by the Nazis (even if the five million non-Jews are virtually forgotten). This is another one of those facts which the enemies of Pius XII would like everyone to ignore. If Pius XII’s so-called silence must necessarily involve indifference to the deaths of millions of Catholics too, that tends to make their case look more absurd than it already is.

Notice also that these critics do not want to hear about the victims of Communism, the numbers of which exceeds, by far, the 11 million killed by the Nazis. Why don’t they want to hear about it? Because, in addition to their hatred of the Catholic Church, they wish to convince the world that all political evil comes from the right.

Maybe fifty years from now the world will have come to its senses about abortion, the way it came to its senses about slavery and other evils of the past. But don’t be surprised if a new generation of liars starts writing books and plays about John Paul II, railing against his “silence” while millions of innocent babies were being murdered. These libels against Pius XII are scarcely less absurd.

On the plus side, all this rabid hatred against Pius XII and the other great popes of this century affirms their Christian authenticity: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

—John Loranger
Sparks, Nevada

As an aside rather than an argument, we note the discrepancy among the statistics cited in the above letters. We have no intention of plunging into a debate over the accuracy of different statistics. Rather, we want to alert readers to the fact that, in the chaos that engulfed Europe after World War II, various historians did their best to estimate the military and civilian casualties of that conflict. All such estimates are debatable—to say the least.

— The Editor

Lost in the woods
I wish to commend Msgr. George Kelly on his scholarly and penetrating review of Father M. O’Brien’s biography of Father Hesburgh (“A Man of Influence,” July 1999).

Unfortunately, it happens so often that great intellectuals and powerful leaders end up by not seeing the forest because of the trees—the trees in this case being Father Hesburgh himself.

—H.R. Lachance
Dudley, Massachusetts

Corrections on Irish history
Your cover feature on “Ireland’s Endangered Catholic Heritage” (July 1999) came to a number of interesting conclusions about the place of religion in today’s Ireland. Unfortunately the authority of its conclusions was somewhat undermined by a number of basic factual errors.

The article refers to President McAleese and “the government which she heads.” The President does not head the government; she is the Head of State and has no political role.

The author incorrectly avers that “abortion has not yet become legally available in Ireland.” In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman may have an abortion at any time during her pregnancy if her life is in danger (including by a threat of suicide). That is the law as it stands.

Perhaps less seriously, Paraic Maher refers to Ireland’s Fine Gael party as “left-leaning.” I’m sure this comes as a surprise to those who recall Fine Gael’s Blueshirt army, which fought for Franco and the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War! The party now sits with the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament.

Finally, your picture caption suggests that St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin is a Catholic Church. It has not been so, since the Reformation, unfortunately! While the Episcopalian Church of Ireland has two cathedrals in Dublin (Christ Church and St. Patrick’s), the Catholic Church has none—just a pro-cathedral on a back street.

—Kieron Wood
Dublin, Ireland

In accepting these corrections, I must absolve the author of any responsibility for the error in the photo caption. That was solely my own fault; I wrote the photo caption myself. No doubt because I was raised in Boston, where hostility toward the Catholic Church goes hand in hand with hostility toward the Irish people, it never crossed my mind that a Protestant church could be named in honor of St. Patrick.

— The Editor

Suffering for the Church
What a pity you put the caption right across the beautifully reproduced page from the Book of Kells adorning the cover of the July issue of your excellent magazine!

—C.T. Greenan, OP
Dublin, Ireland

We apologize. But, as we pointed out, the original is available for viewing—in your own home town!

— The Editor

Bishops and theologians
Is there a practical way to solve the conflict between the freedom of Catholic theologians and the authority of Catholic bishops? (See “Averting a Collision,” May 1999.)

Catholic colleges and universities and the American bishops could use theological accrediting boards to certify theology teachers to receive mandates to teach or to judge complaints against a teacher’s orthodoxy. United States schools and hospitals are regularly subject to such accrediting bodies. Regional theological accrediting boards could be made up of experts appointed by the bishops and universities of a given region. The judgment of the board would be subject to the ratification of the individual bishop of the relevant diocese.

A theology teacher could appeal a negative judgment to a doctrinal commission of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Final appeal could be made to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In this briefly outlined system bishops and universities or colleges would share responsibility, and learn to collaborate for the greater good of Church and academy. A local bishop’s theological ignorance or bias could be avoided, a fairer judgment given, local responsibility and subsidiarity encouraged, and Vatican authorities not unnecessarily burdened. The genuinely Catholic character of theology teaching in Catholic colleges and universities could thus be effectively secured.

I mentioned this plan in a letter to First Things two years ago, but I believe it bears mentioning again as a practical means of resolving the current impasse.

—Jerome F. Treacy, SJ
Clarkston, Minnesota

Such a solution, unfortunately, would not come to grips with the crucial reality that the bishop—not the university, and not the theologian—bears the primary responsibility for the accurate teaching of the Catholic faith in his diocese. A bishop can seek expert advice whenever he thinks it prudent to do so, but he cannot delegate his responsibility as shepherd of the flock. Moreover, the Vatican—and in particular the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith —has set up a series of procedures to protect theologians against the arbitrary or capricious use of episcopal authority. The critical problem before the Church in the United States is not how bishops and Catholic universities can work together, but whether the universities will accept any invocation of the bishop’s authority.

— The Editor

Suffering for the Church
It was interesting to find in your July issue two different viewpoints by two prominent Catholics on the Catholic traditions of suffering and self-denial.

According to James Hitchcock (“Thirty Years of Blight”) the spirit of self-denial was thrown out the window in the wake of Vatican II, thereby subverting a generation of clergy and religious as well as much of the laity.

In contrast Stratford Caldecott, in an article on the new millennium (“Second Spring”), tends to downplay the need for suffering and boldly declares that Christ’s injunction to “Take up your cross and follow me,” was misinterpreted even by many of the greatest saints.

Actually it is hard to believe that the fervent desire of the saints to suffer and sacrifice for the Lord was misplaced. Mother Teresa was also aware of the value of suffering and often said that if you want something to succeed, to get someone to suffer for you.

Through the ages the saints have always dealt faithfully and directly with sin, suffering, and the need to repent; something that modern Catholicism refuses to do. As Hitchcock suggests, it may take a new generation of suffering saints to bring mainline Catholicism back on track.

—George Koenig
St. Francis, Wisconsin

In fairness to Stratford Caldecott, we must point out that he did not “downplay the need for suffering.” Indeed he wrote that “sacrifices certainly bear fruit, and the Church is largely built on them.” But he made the much more limited point that Christians should not ask for suffering—beyond the suffering that comes inevitably into any human life. Again, as he put it: “There is all the difference in the world between being prepared to do God’s will, even if it be to die in agony, and praying for a place on the Cross at his right hand or at his left. Those places are for the Father to grant.”

— The Editor

Marginalizing himself
Brian O’Neel’s Special Report (“Is the Vatican Being Ignored,” August/September 1999) cites Declan Deane, SJ (apparently misspelling his name) three times. Deane might be taken for a conscientious pastor, with thoughtful misgivings about Rome’s unwelcome intrusions. Perhaps he needs room to expand a little, on his own. He presents himself as an outspoken partisan, eager not to appear shy—the protagonist of a new, inclusive institution that probably nobody needs. To him it seems that “the Vatican” is the enemy of the Christian Gospel, and doctrinal orthodoxy is a false god. Naturally, ecclesiastical protocols are beside the point. The authentic Gospel turns out to be a very mixed message.

Rome attempts gently to address a decline that has gone unchecked by other leadership. So far, it is too little and too late. It is a holy and wholesome thought to rescue the marginalized; but when the local parish plays by its own rules, it has marginalized itself.

—Clarence Zaar
San Francisco, California

Suffering for the Church
I am not a Serb; I am a Greek Orthodox who believes in the need of a rapprochement between Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholics to face the perils ahead. I am an active re-unificationist and I could not agree with you more heartily that there is much the Roman Catholics have missed in their religious education and history lessons concerning their Eastern brothers. As I have already underlined in my books, borrowing the famous dictum of Benjamin Franklin in an analogous situation, “If we do not hang together we will surely hang separately.”

The debate on the Serbian “atrocities” deserves a more balanced forum, allowing the other side to present its own defense. This is happening in many Christian publications and I trust that yours will kindly consider my piece. Audietur et altera pars.

In the June 1999 Letters, Sandra Miesel suggested that “the usual line is that Kosovo is ‘sacred’ to the Serbs because they lost the Battle of Kosovo (The Field of Blackbirds) to the Turks in 1389.” This is not the usual line. Kosovo is sacred to the Serbs because they chose to resist the Ottoman onslaught at the ultimate price: the lives of their Czar Lazar and his army. They made a moral and spiritual choice over the “Kosovar Albanians” who for the most part emanate from non-Turkish, Christian Balkan peoples who chose Islam over the faith of their forefathers.

The Serbs in modern geopolitics have become fair game and it seems they can be slandered with impunity. However, Massada is a sacred place to the Jews, who were defeated by the Roman legions and committed suicide en masse. At least the Serbs preferred to die in battle, taking the divine injunction against suicide more seriously. Would Miesel put quotation marks around the word “sacred” as it is applied by Jews to the memory of Massada?

In that same June issue, your report on the Pope’s meeting with Kosovar leader Ibrahim Rugova at the Vatican says that Rugova “presented the Pontiff with a stone from Kosovo, noting that the region is rich in minerals such as silver and bronze.” (Bronze is an alloy and not a mineral, but Rugova is merely a national hero, not a metallurgist.) There are those of us who suspect that the “humanitarian war” against the Serbs had at least three ulterior motives:

•    destroy a national army that was getting in the way of the New World Order, pushed by NATO “from the Atlantic to the Urals” and beyond;

•    detach Kosovo (because of the great Trepcha mines located there) from the control of a sovereign national government, hand it over to a puppet government, and operate the mines through an international cartel; and

•    teach a lesson to any other country that dares to stand up to the One-World government backed by NATO, as Solzhenitsyn already remarked in a recent interview.

European Christendom, from the Atlantic to the Urals, contains sizable Muslim minorities (legal and illegal) with tensions mounting everywhere. Soon another “humanitarian war” will break out, and then another, and then another . . .

—Helen Tzima Otto
Rock Hill, South Carolina

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