Jihad Finds a Strange Advocate: “La Civiltà Cattolica”

[David_Paul]

Chiesa

The authoritative magazine publishes a shocking editorial, in which its stance on Islam looks a lot like a surrender. It’s as if Benedict XVI had never delivered the lecture in Regensburg

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, November 8, 2006 – The recent October edition of “La Civiltà Cattolica” – the authoritative magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed with the supervision and authorization of the Vatican authorities – opens with a jaw-dropping editorial on Islam…continued here

 

[manualman]

I’m not sure I agree with all of the criticisms of the article.

Some of what the critics see as acquiesence is merely active listening. Presentation of the other side’s view without criticism (at least at first).

There is a LOT of merit to the thought that you cannot come in from the outside and impose democracy where is doesn’t exist now. We may be learning in Iraq that if the people aren’t the ones struggling for it in a broad grass roots effort, they don’t value it like they should and/or don’t respect the law that comes out of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I see plenty to criticize in the original article. Just not the same things that get most of the attention of this one.

It is interesting that the Vatican had a very much fatalistic attitude towards communism before JPII was made pope. The attitude took the existence of communism for granted and looked for way to co-exist with it. JPII instead took the approach that communism had to be fundamentally alterred at least, or obliterated at most. The latter happend in Europe. No reason the former couldn’t happen to Islam (though I’d personally prefer the latter there too).

Perhaps the church bureacrats are falling into some familiar old habits…

 

[Genesis315]

The commentary in that article was really skewed. Jihad was not being advocated at all.

That being said, while I can see where the original editorial is coming from, I think it was a bad way to go about it–I think it tried to walk a fine line and it fell a bit on the wrong side. It kind of reminded me of the fine line between saying a rape victim should have used more prudence and saying the rape victim is at fault.

If a woman dresses scantily and acts flirtatious and seductively in an environment where there are men with a high tendency to sexual assault and she is assaulted, that doesn’t justify the crime, nor does the fault lay on the victim–but it doesn’t mean that the vicitim through lack of prudence didn’t play a part in stirring up and provoking the evil tendencies in those who already had a tendency towards evil.

In the same way, I see the editorial as saying radical Islam already has the tendency to do evil, but that trying to force western secularism on them is only going to provoke violent manifestations of those evil tendencies–I don’t think this can be denied. I think the editorial, however, tended to come across like it was blaming the victim and justifying the evil a bit. I don’t think it did so as badly as the commentary in the linked article seems to think, but I do think it did not walk the line successfully.