The Shame Of The Muslim World

Writing in the National Post, Father Raymond J. de Souza says the rioting caused by the words of Pope Benedict XVI "shames the Muslim world". He is quite correct, here. It is past time to say some of the things he brings out in his article.

Benedict was quoting a 14th-century Christian emperor, under siege from the Ottomans, defending the position that spreading religion by violence is contrary to the nature of God. The Emperor, quite reasonably given his circumstances, suggested to his Persian interlocutor such a view did not prevail in Islamic thought.

In response to this historical excursus in an academic lecture by one of the world's most erudite theologians, we are witnessing a wave of madness and malice, no doubt an embarrassment to millions of Muslims.

Roman Catholics are likely angry. Relations between adherents of the two religions simply cannot develop without all conducting themselves as mature adults.

It does a disservice to children to call the wild-eyed statements and deranged behaviour of the past days childish.

It is not only the obscenity of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist band suppressed in several Muslim states, demanding an apology from anyone, let alone the Holy Father.

It is not only the grandstanding Pakistani politicians passing resolutions condemning a papal speech few read, and even fewer understood. It is not only the extraneous charges about the Holocaust and Hitler by the agitated and excited.

It is that we have seen this before.

When Pope John Paul II made his epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Palestinian Muslim representatives jostled him on the Temple Mount, shouted at him, and, in one episode of maximum rudeness, abandoned him on stage during an interfaith meeting. Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, treated him to an anti-Semitic rant when the late pope visited Syria.

Catholic goodwill toward global Islam is severely attenuated by such continued maltreatment of our universal pastors.

And it is well past time that the maltreatment of history ceased too.

The irony of the accusations that Pope Benedict has a "Crusader mentality" is that he was speaking about the period in which the Crusades themselves took place.

Father de Souza makes a number of very good points. Trying to unravel the history of the Middle East at this late date and figure out who wronged who first is pointless. Trying to open a dialog is not. But rioting in response to words does not advance a dialog. Having terrorist front groups treated as legitimate sources for criticism of the Pope is madness. This is the shame Islamists have brought onto the Muslim world. The words of the Pope did not do this. The people who are driving the rioters did.

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  By AlwaysWatching, September 17, 2006 @ 10:59 am

  I totally agree. I think people better start waking up. I have been watching the so called religion of peace closely for the past 5 years, and the more I learn then the more I believe, they are the religion of hate. If they do not have infidels to hate then they hate anyone in Islam that does not agree with them completely, just look how the sunni and shites hate each other. And I keep hearing that this is only a minority of extremists, this I am having a hard time believing. If most Muslims do not agree with this they better start helping to stop it. I think most of us knows if this continues into a all out war, then it will not matter if you are a extremists or not. Most people will only see them as a Muslim, that wants to kill them.

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