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July 27, 2007

Vatican: Pope's Secretary Warns Against Islam

On September 12 last year, Pope Benedict XVI addressed students at his former university at Regensburg. Here he quoted the words of Manuel Paleologos, a Byzantine emperor. Around the end of the 14th century, the emperor had written: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"

"God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."

Benedict's speech around this statement was to state that violence was incompatible with Godliness - and even though Islam exhorts its followers to violence, both in the Koran and in the Hadiths, Benedict was suggesting (erroneously) that Muslims who follow jihadist violence are acting contrarily to the will of God. Perhaps the will of God is against violence, but Allah certainly was not averse to telling Mohammed to wage war on "unbelievers" and apostates.

The theological argument was treated in some depth, and was not an overt attack upon Islamic scriptures, but it led to recriminations from the Muslim world, and threats of violence.

In Pakistan, the US-designated terror organization Jamat ud-Dawa (not outlawed by Pakistan) issued a fatwa, urging the Muslim community to kill the Pope. In Britain Anjem Choudary, a former leader of Al-Muhajiroun claimed outside the Catholic Westminster Cathedral that the Pope should be executed. Choudary was not charged for this.

Killings of Christians ensued. In Iraq, an Assyrian priest, Father Paulos Iskander, was beheaded, and a 14-year old Christian boy was crucified in Albasra. A group calling itself "Kataab Ashbal Al Islam Al Salafi" threatened to kill all Christians in Iraq if the pontiff did not apologize to Mohammed, the founder of Islam.

In Israel, churches were attacked. In Somalia on September 17 an Italian nun, Sister Leonella, was shot three times in the back while she worked in the SOS Hospital in the Huriwa district of Mogadishu. Three other nuns were subsequently evacuated for their safety. A Somali imam, Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin, urged Muslims to "punish" the Pope. He said: "Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim."

News from the Jerusalem Post, Telegraph, the Scotsman, the Express, DPA via Expatica reports that the pontiff's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, has made a forthright statement condemning the "Islamization" of Europe. The statement was contained in the German magazine Süeddeutsche Magazin, published today.

He said: "Attempts to Islamize the West cannot be denied. The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected with it should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respectfulness."

"The Catholic side is clearly aware of this and also says so. Particularly the speech from Regensburg should work against this wrongly understood respectfulness. It has to be said that there is no such thing as Islam and it does not have a voice that is obligatory and binding to all Muslims. Under this term (ie Islam) many different groups are put together, that are partially hostile to each other, some even extremist, who refer their doings to the Koran and who use rifles for their goals."

"On the institutional level the Holy See tries to make contacts and conduct talks in conjunction with Papal advice to create inter-religious dialogue and ties."

Monsignor Georg Gaenswein also defended the statements of Pope Benedict from Regensberg, claiming the speech had been made to counter "a certain naivety". He said: "I believe that the speech from Regensburg, as it was held, is prophetic."

The archbishop of Cologne, Joachim Meisner, recently claimed in a radio talk that "immigration of Muslims has created a breach in our German, European culture."

Apparently Monsignor Georg Gaenswein's comments have been interpreted by "Vatican watchers" as a criticism of the governments of Western Europe who do all in their power to accommodate Muslims and their "sensibilities", at the expense of their native Christian traditions.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 27, 2007 5:37 PM

Comments

Posted by: Collier at August 4, 2007 11:07 PM

Posted by: Giraldus Cambrensis at August 6, 2007 6:57 AM

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