The Pope speaks about Islam-West clash

Earlier this month Pope Benedict XVI met with the diplomatic corps to the Vatican and spoke about relations between Islam and the West. He mentioned the danger of a clash of civilizations, which, given the fact that he was addressing diplomats, was striking, I suppose. But then he followed that up with conciliatory notes that undermined the clash of civilization idea, making it sound as though the clash is not due to Islam but to terrorists who are using Islam. This is much too close to the world view of George W. Bush.

The pope also spoke of the hope of renewed cultural exchanges between the West and Islam, just like in those Golden Oldie Days of Yore, those Culturally Pluralist Paradises of Baghdad and Andalusia. Please, Holy Father, let us be serious. Leaving aside the question of Islam’s supposed great contributions to European civilization in the past, what by the way of positive cultural goods does today’s Muslim world have to offer the West? What? Their superior moral and sexual discipline, perhaps? Even granting the premise that they have a superior moral code, it remains the case that if we of the West are to heal our cultural and spiritual ills, we must do it ourselves, in our own way, based on our own religion and tradition, not look to hostile aliens to do it for us, unless we merely want them to replace us.

The pope is highly intelligent, insightful, and personable, and not addicted to the liberal delusions that so marred the preceding pontificate. He is also close to 80 years old. If he is to lead the Vatican and the West to a more realistic stance vis à vis Islam aimed at Western and Christian survival, he’d better start yesterday.

The below article, from the French anti-Islam website, Occidentalis, has been translated for us by a VFR reader.

At a reception held at the Vatican for the accredited diplomatic corps to the Holy See, there to present their wishes to the Pope, Benedict XVI warned of a “clash of civilizations” and stated that “this danger is intensified by organized terrorism that is now spreading throughout the entire planet. No circumstance can justify this criminal activity, that clothes the perpetrators in infamy, and that is all the more reprehensible because it protects itself behind the shield of a religion,” the Pope continued.

…the Pope stated that over the centuries cultural exchanges between the Arab and European worlds “have generated culture and encouraged the sciences and civilizations. It ought to be that way again today,” he proclaimed in a speech devoted primarily to peace.

“My thoughts turn spontaneously to the land where Jesus, Prince of Peace, was born (…), to Lebanon where the people must return to their historic mission of sincere and fruitful collaboration between the communities of different faiths, to the entire Middle East, in particular to Iraq, plunged into mourning on a daily basis by bloody terrorist acts,” he declared.

“The State of Israel must be allowed to exist in peace (…) and the Palestinian people must equally be able to peacefully develop their democratic institutions for a free and prosperous future,” he affirmed.

Before ambassadors of the 174 countries accredited to the Holy See, Benedict XVI, speaking in French, deplored the fact that freedom of religion is not guaranteed everywhere, that it is “even seriously violated in certain States, even among those that boast of centuries-old cultural traditions,” an allusion to countries—which he did not name—such as China, Vietnam, or Saudi Arabia that do not maintain diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 30, 2006 06:05 PM | Send