Can Islam peacefully co-exist?
Pope Benedict apparently thinks not, according to one Father Joseph D. Fessio, who is the Provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, and knows the pope personally. This is a transcript from the Hugh Hewitt show.
This is another reason to read the Koran for myself. Keep in mind here that Cardinal Ratzinger is the same guy as Pope Benedict, so you're not confused.
Also, the context of much of this conversation is what will happen to Europe, where large waves of immigrants from Northern Africa and the Middle East are displacing white Europe, which is not reproducing at a level high enough to keep up. For more on that, read this Mark Steyn piece.
This is another reason to read the Koran for myself. Keep in mind here that Cardinal Ratzinger is the same guy as Pope Benedict, so you're not confused.
Also, the context of much of this conversation is what will happen to Europe, where large waves of immigrants from Northern Africa and the Middle East are displacing white Europe, which is not reproducing at a level high enough to keep up. For more on that, read this Mark Steyn piece.
JF: Well, Joseph Ratzinger as professor was very, very popular, and had many, many graduate students. And as part of the graduate program, you'd have these seminars called Hauptseminare, major seminars, or Proseminaren, and there'd be eight or ten or twelve of us graduate students with Cardinal Ratzinger. Then, he was Father Ratzinger leading it. And they were so rich, so fruitful, that when he became archbishop of Munich in 1977, the students decided that they would want to try and continue some kind of regular meeting to discuss theological issues. And he was very happy to do that. So from that point on, every year, we have met for a weekend, usually at a monastery. We'll pray together, we'll read scripture together, we'll do fellowship together, we will study together, we will eat together, and have a couple of presentations from scholars on a particular topic, and we'll discuss it. They've always been very, very enriching and very beautiful. And so, we had planned last year, in 2004, that in 2005, we would discuss Islam. And it was all agreed upon. We had two people picked out to come. When he was elected Pope, we figured well, it's going to be all off now. But he said no, no. He said I'm Pope, but I want to keep my relationships with my friends in the past, and I want to continue this. That's why we had it again.
HH: And the other speaker, who would that have been?
JF: That was another Jesuit, actually, from Germany, a Father Christian Troll, who is an expert on Islam in Europe.
HH: And what were the natures of their presentations? That it is an ominous time for Christendom, because it simply cannot keep pace, either population or with zeal, compared to the reach of Islam?
JF: Let me divide my answer into two parts, and you can interrupt me at any time, because I realize it's your show. I'm taking all the time.
HH: Oh, no. I'm fascinated.
JF: But as background, I want to say without exaggeration, and without trying to become histrionic here, I see the trends...I've seen them for years, in Europe, of depopulation as you've mentioned. And their immigration is coming from the South, which is mainly Islamic. And there are, I think there are 98 Islamic countries in the world, and 97 of them do not have religious freedom. The only one that does is Mali, where Timbuktu is, you know. It's in a desert, so you can hardly count it. Sorry about any Malians who are listening to this program. And that's what's going to happen to Europe. Once there's an Islamic majority, it is going to not...it's going to eliminate religious freedom. However...and therefore, Western civilization as we know it. However, in the United States, we also are not having children. There's abortion. There's contraception. There's the ideal of a one or two child family. But where is our immigration coming from? From Ecuador, from Mexico, from Cuba, from Guatemala. And these people are Christians. And so, I believe without being...you know, having hubris as an American, I believe that Christians in the United States are the ones who will be able to save not just Christianity, but Western civilization, if we maintain our fidelity to the scriptures, our fidelity to Christ, our fidelity to family life, and our fidelity to fertility and fruitfulness in marriage. So I believe we are in a world historical century, which is going to depend upon the strength of Christianity in these United States. I say I think that's...I may raise my voice. I may get excited. I might waive a Bible or something like that, but I believe this is the hard facts, unless God...He could always...He's in charge. He could perform a miracle. He could do something we can't possibly have foreseen. But I see that as what's happening. Now, that's part one. The second part is shorter. The main presentation by this Father Troll was very interesting. He based it on a Pakistani Muslim scholar names Rashan, who was at the University of Chicago for many years, and Rashan's position was Islam can enter into dialogue with modernity, but only if it radically reinterprets the Koran, and takes the specific legislation of the Koran, like cutting off your hand if you're a thief, or being able to have four wives, or whatever, and takes the principles behind those specific pieces of legislation for the 7th Century of Arabia, and now applies them, and modifies them, for a new society which women are now respected for their full dignity, where democracy's important, religious freedom's important, and so on. And if Islam does that, then it will be able to enter into real dialogue and live together with other religions and other kinds of cultures.
HH: Is he an optimist about that happening?
JF: He is, but interesting, Hugh, you know, all the seminars I recall with Joseph Ratzinger, Father Ratzinger, he'd always let the students speak. He'd wait until the end, and he would intervene. This is the first time I recall where he made an immediate statement. And I'm still struck by it, how powerful it was.
HH: We only have thirty seconds, Father Fessio.
JF: Oh, I can't do it.
HH: Then I want to come back after the break.
JF: Okay. Hugh, we've got to come back to this after the break.
HH: That's the greatest bridge ever.
JF: That'll keep your listeners.
HH: You betcha. No one's going to go away. And here's what the Pope said...
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HH: Father Fessio, before the break, you were telling us that after the presentation at Castel Gandolfo by two scholars of Islam this summer with Benedict in attendance, as well as his former students, for the first time in your memory, the Pope did not allow his students to first comment and reserve comment, but in fact, went first. Why, and what did he say?
JF: Well, the thesis that was proposed by this scholar was that Islam can enter into the modern world if the Koran is reinterpreted by taking the specific legislation, and going back to the principles, and then adapting it to our times, especially with the dignity that we ascribe to women, which has come through Christianity, of course. And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that, because he said in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world, and therefore by establishing a Church in which he gives authority to His followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations. I was...I mean, Hugh, I wish I could say it as clearly and as beautifully as he did, but that's why he's Pope and I'm not, okay? That's one of the reasons. One of others, but his seeing that distinction when the Koran, which is seen as something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied, even, and the Bible, which is a word of God that comes through a human community, it was stunning.
HH: And so, is it fair to describe him as a pessimist about the prospect of modernity truly engaging Islam in the way modernity has engaged Christianity?
JF: Well, the other way around.
HH: Yes. I meant that.
JF: Yeah, that Christianity can engage modernity just like it did...the Jews did Egypt, or Christians did to Greece, because we can take what's good there, and we can elevate it through the revelation of Christ in the Bible. But Islam is stuck. It's stuck with a text that cannot be adapted, or even be interpreted properly.
HH: And so the Pope is a pessimist about that changing, because it would require a radical reinterpretation of what the Koran is?
JF: Yeah, which is it's impossible, because it's against the very nature of the Koran, as it's understood by Muslims.
HH: And so, even the dialectic that was the Reformation is not possible within Islam?
JF: No. And then a second thing which he did not say, but which I would have said, I might have said at the time, is that...and this is from a Catholic point of view, there's no one to interpret the Koran officially. the Catholic Church has an official interpretor, which is the Holy Father with the bishops.
HH: Right. Well, let me ask you then. If, in fact, that reformation within Islam is not possible in the eyes of the Pope, and the demographics do not change, as they are unlikely to change in Europe, the last time Christendom went under the waves, so to speak, in Europe, there were the monasteries, beseiged as they were by the barbarians, sacked as they were by the Vikings, they endured.
JF: Yeah.
HH: That doesn't happen in modernity, because of the technology of oppression. And you've just noted the reluctance of Islam to accept religious pluralism, or to embrace it and celebrate it.
JF: Yes.
HH: And so what happens in Europe?
JF: Well, Hugh, I've got one of the very few things that I've said, which I'm proud of, because it's become kind of almost a slogan to some, is that home schools are the monasteries of the new dark ages. That is...and you non-Catholic Christians have a lot more of them than we Catholics do, but we've got a lot. And I think that is where families are having children. They're passing on the faith to their children. They're giving them wisdom and the knowledge of our culture. And we have an advantage here, because the homosexuals, and the pro-abortionists, and the pro-contraception people, are not having children by definition.
HH: That's in the Steyn article as well.
posted by stan at 11:58 AM
2 Comments:
Speaking of Islam...
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These "hijackers" somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
bad girl
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