Slouching Toward Suicide

[CelticSword]

The author argues that the Catholic Church–particularly in Europe–in conceeding far too much ground to Islam in the spirit of ecumenism.

The introductory part of the essay follows. Read the complete essay here.

During his visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world on Sept. 12 by issuing a subtle, discreet yet formidable challenge to Islam – a challenge that drew praise from various observers.

The pope’s rhetoric, however, contrasts with his failure to confront a more fundamental problem: the Catholic Church’s willingness to concede its own worship space to Muslims, without regard for the consequences.

In Europe and the United States, Catholic authorities have encouraged the transformation of Catholic schools and churches into Muslim schools and mosques. One order of friars is helping Italian Muslims build a mosque right next to its monastery. In Belgium, meanwhile, the Catholic bishops let illegal Muslim immigrants live and worship in churches to force the government to grant amnesty.

Those same Catholic authorities would not grant similar concessions to Protestants or Eastern Orthodox, whose theologies are infinitely more similar.

Given the violent, anti-Semitic and anti-Western ideology permeating contemporary Islam – as well as decades of massive Muslim immigration to Europe – the implications are obvious.

“While Western Europe is turning Muslim, its Christian churches are committing suicide,” wrote* The Brussels Journal’s* Paul Belien in May.

 

[m134e5]

We need to pray for the Church in Europe

 

[Richardols]

In Europe and the United States, Catholic authorities have encouraged the transformation of Catholic schools and churches into Muslim schools and mosques.

Hardly encouraged. You can be sure that the Church wishes it had the congregants or students to keep those functioning as Catholic. When a “Catholic” church or school is sold, they are no longer Catholic at that point, but are just property. A school is just another building, but I believe that there are some rites that the Church must use to “de-sanctify” (??) or secularize a church.

There is a former church in Pittsburgh that is now a brewpub/restaurant, and I’m sure there are other such elsewhere.

 

[rpp]

The author argues that the Catholic Church–particularly in Europe–in conceeding far too much ground to Islam in the spirit of ecumenism.

The introductory part of the essay follows. Read the complete essay here.

During his visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world on Sept. 12 by issuing a subtle, discreet yet formidable challenge to Islam – a challenge that drew praise from various observers.

While I am not sure I would say a large number of bishops in the US (I do not know about Europe) have “encouraged the transformation… into Muslim… mosques”, I would say that that tolerance is not the virtue it is touted to be.

I do think there is an improper degree of tolerance. Tolerance is a “virtue” based on relativistic (and secular) morality and is a purely secular concept. It seeks to equalize the inherently unequal. There is no objective standard for “toleration” as a moral choice. Where does toleration end? (There is an important difference between loving your enemy and true Catholic charity, and “toleration”.)

False “tolerance” is tightly coupled with another problem that leads to this false “Moslem brother” concept.

The concept is promoted by modern theologians. Some have called them “liberal”. I prefer to use the carefully selected term “innovative” to describe the theology they expound. (Note that I am referring to their theology, not the individual.) One of these theological/doctrinal innovations is that all religions are essentially equal, that there is a form of salvation outside of the Church. An alternate, but logically extensible variation of this theological innovation is that all will go to Heaven, that no one is condemned to Hell for eternity.

These theological innovations are quite in vogue today. Many who express a classical Thomistic and/or Augustinian basis for their research are often considered to theological “knuckle-draggers”.

When one espouses either one of these two theological innovations, and they are not mutually exclusive, it becomes obvious that supporting Islam, and all other religions (why not Satanism? I do not know.) is entirely appropriate, even required. In fact, why not have an imam concelebrate Mass? (Because the imam would think it is heresy in his religion!)

However, if someone, like me for instance, rejects these theological innovations, supporting others religions by promoting their worship is seems to be a serious and grave error. (I have no problems with offering food, clothing, medical care, etc. to non-Christians. Quite the contrary, I think it is both our obligation and an effective means of evangelization.)

(By the way, “innovation” when used in the theological sense is equivalent to heresy. Remember, innovation means a something new. Faithful theology is an ever-increasing understanding of the Deposit of Faith; it cannot introduce new doctrine or alter existing doctrine. The Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary are theological extensions representing a more complete understanding. Rejecting eternal condemnation to Hell or claiming there is salvation outside the Church requires a change in existing doctrine.)

 

[Richardols]

I would say that that tolerance is not the virtue it is touted to be.

I do think there is an improper degree of tolerance. Tolerance is a “virtue” based on relativistic (and secular) morality and is a purely secular concept. It seeks to equalize the inherently unequal. There is no objective standard for “toleration” as a moral choice. Where does toleration end?

Isn’t there a difference between tolerance and acceptance? It seems that we have to tolerate a lot of things (the KKK, abortionists, pornography, etc.) but we do not have to accept them and can work against acceptance.

Or am I just bothering myself with semantics?

 

[David_Paul]

There is no objective standard for “toleration” as a moral choice. Where does toleration end?

With a suffocating political correctness which is, in itself, intolerant.

 

[OriginalJS]

I don’t know why for some the word “tolerance” has a negative connotation for many on this website. We get along in society because we tolerate one another’s differences. Even in the immediate family husbands and wives tolerate behaviors that they don’t like. This ranges from the petty (squeezing toothpaste out of the middle of the tube) to the more serious (spouse comes home drunk from time to time.) Loving your neighbor like yourself requires a great deal of tolerance - that’s why it may be difficult.

Of course there is a limit to toleration. My children may be playing music I don’t particularly like but I tolerate it until the subwoofers are turned up to where the beat hurts my chest and I can’t hear myself think.

What seems to offend people is to be told they are intolerant. The word “intolerant” has a very negative connotation and carries an implication of ignorance.

 

[rpp]

Isn’t there a difference between tolerance and acceptance? It seems that we have to tolerate a lot of things (the KKK, abortionists, pornography, etc.) but we do not have to accept them and can work against acceptance.

Or am I just bothering myself with semantics?

I am not sure if it is semantics. I am not certain what the objective difference between acceptance and tolerance is. Nor am I certain about the objective limits of either.

I read an article in Crisis magazine a few months ago (April or May?) that discussed this very thing. It contended, right so, I think, that because there is no objectivity with tolerance (I do not recall anything about “acceptance”), it is unclear what the limits are.

For example, the secular world, (“political correctness” to some) tells us to tolerate those whose hold different views than our own, be understanding of another point of view and life experience. Then, in the very same breath they tell us to hate the KKK, yet they defend their right to say it. What is with that? Isn’t that a little schizophrenic? Of course it is. The KKK spouts evil and hate based on ethnic and religious differences. Should they have the **right **to publish their poison? Toleration says yes. A well-formed Catholic conscience may come to a different conclusion.

PC tells us to be tolerant of homosexual and bisexual persons; not just the people, but their actions and lifestyle. Why not be tolerant of someone who wants to engage in necrophilia? What is wrong with pedophilia as along as both consent? I mean doesn’t a bright 14 year-old know the score? Where does tolerance end?

Here is another example that will bring that back to the thread topic.

This tolerance/political correctness attitude requires us to be “tolerant” of different religions. What does that mean? Effectively what it says is that religion is unimportant. It does not matter. In fact, it is a polite but powerful way to both reject and suppress religion. Any religion, after all, that claims it has the Truth and “there is no salvation outside the Church” is inherently intolerant and therefore evil. Is that the right attitude for a Catholic, a Christian, or even a Moslem to adopt? Absolutely not!

It essentially forbids the teaching of objective morality because that “does not tolerate” those who fail to live up to it, be it by weakness or rejection.

In fact, the attitude of tolerance is a logical absurdity. Because it rejects those who disagree with contempt and intolerance.

Generally this attitude of “tolerance” which it the prime virtue of, and loudly touted by the more socially liberal who reject objective morality in favor a system of “situational ethics” instead. Socially conservative people have a tolerant attitude, but it is not the summit of their morality. Rather it is an expression of objective and non-relative morality. (Yes, I know I am making generalizations which will not apply in all cases.)

Social conservative are often, loudly and publicly castigated for “intolerance” and “insensitivity” when they use objective morality in their decision-making. Thus a pro-lifer, pro-traditional marriage supporter, and a anti-porn campaigner are “intolerant” because they cannot “accept” the position of the other.

After writing this, I begin to think there is little or no effective difference between “tolerance” and “acceptance”.

 

[OriginalJS]

Here is my argument why religious tolerance is not acceptance. Christianity and Islam have several things in common, they both claim to have the truth, both claim that each person will ultimately be judged and both teach that every person has free will. As a matter of reason and logic, there has to be free will because if there is going someday to be a judgment, then each must be able to make his or her own decisions upon which he or she will be judged.

It may be that in earlier times, people with the greater power simply killed or evicted those whose beliefs differed from their own. That has been passe for several centuries now. There is no Inquisition burning non-believers at the stake.

Instead, we live in diverse neighborhoods that include Christians and Muslims; we don’t try to kill each other and, from my experience, we get along well because we “tolderate” each other although we certainly don’t accept the beliefs other than our own.

 

[St_Francis]

There is no Inquisition burning non-believers at the stake.

Non-believers have never been burned at the stake for not believing.

Moslems and Jews who pretended to have converted to Christianity in Spain in order to subvert either Catholicism or the government, which had just taken Spain back from the Moslems, had committed a crime. Heretics, those who called themselves Catholic, taught heresy as Catholicism, put the souls of others at risk, and refused to repent or even stop what they were doing, had committed a crime.

Many were those who preferred to be judged by the Inquisition to the government of Spain.

 

[David_Paul]

What many in the west call tolerance is most often nothing but thinly disguised relativism.

The president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, and Pope Benedict write of this in detail in Without Roots;The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam

A great book.

 

[MikeinSD]

Non-believers have never been burned at the stake for not believing.

Moslems and Jews who pretended to have converted to Christianity in Spain in order to subvert either Catholicism or the government, which had just taken Spain back from the Moslems, had committed a crime. Heretics, those who called themselves Catholic, taught heresy as Catholicism, put the souls of others at risk, and refused to repent or even stop what they were doing, had committed a crime.

Many were those who preferred to be judged by the Inquisition to the government of Spain.

I’m sorry. You are wrong. Not being Cathoic is not a crime.

But Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 expelled the Jews. fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1492-jews-spain1.html
home.earthlink.net/~etzahaim/sphist.html

In addition, Conversos (Jewish coverts) were persecuted. “An Inquisition Tribunal was set up in Ciudad Real, where 100 Conversos were condemned, and it was moved to Toledo in 1485. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto-da-fes were held in Toledo, 467 people were burned at the stake and others were imprisoned.”

According to the Catholic encyclopedia:
Jewish historian Graetz contents himself with stating that “under the first Inquisitor Torquemada, in the course of fourteen years (1485-1498) at least 2000 Jews were burnt as impenitent sinners” (“History of the Jews”, Philadelphia, 1897, IV, 356). Most historians hold with the Protestant Peschel (Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Stuttgart, 1877, pp. 119 sq.) that the number of persons burnt from 1481 to 1504, when Isabella died, was about 2000. Whether Torquemada’s ways of ferreting out and punishing heretics were justifiable is a matter that has to be decided not only by comparison with the penal standard of the fifteenth century, but also, and chiefly, by an inquiry into their necessity for the preservation of Christian Spain. The contemporary Spanish chronicler, Sebastian de Olmedo (Chronicon magistrorum generalium Ordinis Prædicatorum, fol. 80-81) calls Torquemada “the hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honour of his order”.

In the 21st century, I really hope that no one thinks the burning of religious minorities reflects Jesus’ love for humanity. But perhaps I’m wrong too.