St. John Paul II's comment on "aggressive" Islam: When was it?

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BartholomewB

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Can someone here kindly help me answer a question about a date during the pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II?

The incident described below certainly happened in the eighties, probably in the early eighties. If possible, I would like to p(name removed by moderator)oint it more precisely than that. This is what I was told in a PM from a poster on another website. In the course of a speech to the assembled management and workers at an Olivetti typewriter factory in Italy, John Paul II is reported to have said:

“What the Koran teaches people is aggression; what we teach our people is peace. Of course, you always have human nature, which distorts whatever message religion is sending. But even though people can be led astray by vices and bad habits, Christianity aspires to peace and love. Islam is a religion that attacks.”

What is of interest here is the question of timing. Ali Agca’s assassination attempt occurred on 13 May, 1981. Between two and three years went by until it was proved to the Pope’s satisfaction that Agca had been acting under orders from the Islamic Republic, not from the Soviet Union. How does this Olivetti business slot into that time frame? Did the Pope make that comment about the Quran at a time when he already knew it was the Ayatollahs that had tried to kill him, or was it earlier than that, when nobody in the West even suspected their involvement?

Thanks.
 
It was news to me, too. But I am assured that it is supported by eyewitness testimony from Olivetti personnel.
 
I searched, and even copypasted the quote itself onto my searchbar, but it didn’t turn up anything.
 
BartholomewB said:
Me too, @Salibi. That’s why I’m trying here!
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I used my basic knowledge of Italian and tried a few Google searches, and the only result that showed JP II addressing Olivetti was on 19 March 1990 (reported 26 March 1990 in L’Osservatore Romano). Apparently his visit was due to the factory being destroyed by fire, and there was concern over the several hundred jobs at risk.

A transcript of the address is available here. But the topic of the address is completely unrelated to the quote that you were provided (the address doesn’t even mention Islam).

I have the sneaking suspicion that the quote is a fib. It seems very unusual to talk about Islam while addressing a workforce that builds typewriters and calculators.
 
Bithynian said:
I have the sneaking suspicion that the quote is a fib. It seems very unusual to talk about Islam while addressing a workforce that builds typewriters and calculators.
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Could such talk be classified as ‘stereotyping’? 😉
 
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Thank you, @Bithynian! It’s certainly beginning to look as though @EndTimes was on the ball, and the whole thing is a fabrication. The only alternative, I suppose, is that the Pope might perhaps have made that remark about Islam and the Quran in answer to a question, or in the course of an unscripted conversation, not as part of his prepared statement. I’ll get back to the commenter who passed the information on to me, and see what he has to say about it.

In any case, it’s useful to have the date of the papal visit to the Olivetti plant: March 19, 1990, six years after St. John Paul’s famous face-to-face meeting with Ali Agca in his prison cell. That conversation is said to have cleared up the Pope’s last lingering doubts about who it was that had given Agca his orders. The date of the Olivetti visit clearly demonstrates that, if he said it at all, it was nearly a year after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, at a time when the Pope had long known all about the Iranian plot to kill him. It wasn’t just a gratuitous, unprovoked jibe.
 
BartholomewB said:
It was news to me, too. But I am assured that it is supported by eyewitness testimony from Olivetti personnel.
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Then they too will have to solidly source that quote for it to be accepted.

For as presented, it is oppositional to Catholic Teachings on Islam.

_
 
BartholomewB said:
It is not altogether unknown for a pope to make unflattering remarks about Islam, oppositional to Catholic teachings as they may be. You can’t have forgotten Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg lecture in 2006.
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, or about some Jews for that matter as in JPII at Yad Vashem…

In certain context is one thing.

But all that drifts from this OP
and the subsequent apparent agreement
that unless solidly sourced,
JPII did not make those aforementioned comments on Islam…

Which raises the question:

Why is someone presenting a false and acceptable to them accusation against St. Pope JPII ?

Which concerns not the verity of it, per se - but rather, the “When” ?

"
 
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There was a small error in my post. I misread the dates: the fire happened in 2013, so it was not the cause of his visit.

Apparently JP II was touring the Olivetti factory to survey some of their technology developments: the factory had over the past few years converted from the manufacture of typewriters to producing computers (which better explains the content of his address).

But again, it seems a rather odd occasion to make a negative remark about Islam. I agree that it could’ve just been an ill-conceived statement amidst informal question taking.
 
If you go to the Vatican.va list of John Paul II’s speeches, you will see about 8 that were given on 18-19 March 1990 as part of a pastoral visit in Northern Italy. That does not leave a lot of time for off the cuff remarks, though one seems to be an informal talk about computers at the Olivetti plant.

Most of it seems to be about the dignity of labor, which is why it was planned for the feastday of St Joseph? He also addresses priests and religious on evangelization, and young people. My Italian skills are not great, but he does not seem to me to stray from those topics much.

Thanks for suggesting an interesting topic to spend a few minutes on today.
 
BartholomewB said:
Ali Agca’s assassination attempt occurred on 13 May, 1981.
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Today in History this great saint met Agca and forgave him. Agca converted to Catholicism later in life, and had a stint in jail for a murder he committed in 1979
 
Bithynian said:
But again, it seems a rather odd occasion to make a negative remark about Islam. I agree that it could’ve just been an ill-conceived statement amidst informal question taking.
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OR… Without any solid evidence…
it’s apparently another in a long string of attempts to cast aspersion upon St. Pope JPII….

VAT II - NOSTRE AETATE

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
 
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