Vatican's Secretary of State: “The events in Iraq are not a clash between Islam and Christianity”

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Son_of_Niall

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The Secretary of State says that “the majority of Muslims refuse those brutal and inhuman methods. Let us hope that the Islamic world speaks up against them. The international community should be present in the country. The Church has not been silent”
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ANDREA TORNIELLI
RIESE PIO X
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The events in Iraq “are not a clash between Islam and Christianity”, says Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who answered some questions on the international crisis for Vatican Insider last night, after celebrating Mass for the 100th anniversary of the death of Saint Pius X. Less than a week ago, during the press conference on the flight back from Korea, Pope Francis explained that it is legitimate to “stop the unjust aggressor”, specifying, however, that “to stop” does not mean “to bomb”, and that the decision about how to intervene must be taken by the international community through the United Nations, rather than by a single country.
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More…
vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/iraq-iraq-irak-35945/
 
I think the Vatican made this statement so that ecumenical relations do not break down. I disagree with his assessment.
 
He’s a diplomat using diplomatic language. I think the Vatican realizes there is a problem with extremism in the Islamic world considering the Pope’s recent calling on Muslim authorities to condemn ISIS. I’m more concerned with the U.S. State Dept. It’s spokesperson recently stated ISIS has nothing to do with religion. This sounds like they are still in denial about the “religion of peace”.
 
Flagstone said:
He’s a diplomat using diplomatic language. I think the Vatican realizes there is a problem with extremism in the Islamic world considering the Pope’s recent calling on Muslim authorities to condemn ISIS. I’m more concerned with the U.S. State Dept. It’s spokesperson recently stated ISIS has nothing to do with religion. This sounds like they are still in denial about the "religion of peace".
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I wonder if this might be explained by our leaders’ being clueless about both the concept of religion and the concept of peace. . . 🤷
 
I think the question actually would be how the events in Iraq began in the first place. 🤷

MJ
 
I disagree with the assessment as well. I also have to roll my eyes at the intentional vagueness behind the statement on “Stop” does not necessarily mean, “Bomb.” In other words, stop them without violence.

Yes, I agree this would be wonderful, but do we seriously think that these guys would listen to reason given their charter and their actions.

Children’s heads on pikes? Rape jihad? The clear and unambiguous statement by the group that they will kill all infidels and bring the entire world under the Islamic Caliphate? What more does an armed force have to do and say before we conclude, “Ya know, I don’t think these guys are on the guest list for the next ecumenical council.” Yes, we are Christians who despise violence and war. We don’t like killing people, even when they are guilty. We would much rather dialogue and work things out peacefully. Okay! Anyone disagree with that? No? Great! Didn’t think so! Now can we stop engaging in this false compassion? I am one to think that there comes a point that one is not only morally justified in engaging in force to protect the innocent but in fact they are morally OBLIGATED to defend the innocent if they are able!

What would you say about some muscle bound father that let his wife and children be raped in front of him because he felt using force to save them would have put his soul in jeopardy. At best one would say he has a malformed conscience, and at worst it would be said he was a horrible coward.

I don’t know about the innocents on the ground, but I would sure rather get killed in the crossfire between my liberators and my killers rather than die because every army in the world did nothing due to wanting to maintain their ‘moral superiority.’ They wanted to be able to say, “We let innocent people be murdered because we didn’t want to accidentally kill them.” How sweet.

There are Swiss Guards who would defend the Holy Father by more than just screaming, “STOP!!!” at a threat.
 
DaveBj said:
And I completely agree with your assessment 👍
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I agree too… the Vatican is being diplomatic and, frankly, protecting Christians by placing a bit of distance between the perpetrators and the rest of Islam in it’s official stance.

I’m also certain that the Vatican also rightly understands the connection between Islam and the sword, and we should draw strength in the Vatican’s response - returning violence and death with charity and hope.
 
RosslynV said:
I think the Vatican made this statement so that ecumenical relations do not break down. I disagree with his assessment.
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In what way do you disagree? In one way, he is wrong, of course. The Quran clearly states that warfare maybe waged on the ‘infidels.’ But it seems to me that what he means by ‘Islam’ is the religion, as it exists in the real world. In other words, the sociological reality. Most Muslims, who might be totally inconsistent (given the actual teachings of the Quran), aren’t radicalised terrorists or supporters of such, and thus, from a sociological standpoint, the Vatican’s Secretary of State is absolutely correct. He, being the Secretary of State, is probably speaking from a sociological and political standpoint.

Most Muslims aren’t radicalised terrorists or supporters of such, and it turns out that most radical Muslim terrorists aren’t particularly faithful to Islam. They generally aren’t particularly ‘religious,’ as we see from a recent study.
 
KjetilK said:
In what way do you disagree? In one way, he is wrong, of course. The Quran clearly states that warfare maybe waged on the ‘infidels.’ But it seems to me that what he means by ‘Islam’ is the religion, as it exists in the real world. In other words, the sociological reality. Most Muslims, who might be totally inconsistent (given the actual teachings of the Quran), aren’t radicalised terrorists or supporters of such, and thus, from a sociological standpoint, the Vatican’s Secretary of State is absolutely correct. He, being the Secretary of State, is probably speaking from a sociological and political standpoint.

Most Muslims aren’t radicalised terrorists or supporters of such, and it turns out that most radical Muslim terrorists aren’t particularly faithful to Islam. They generally aren’t particularly ‘religious,’ as we see from a recent study.
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This is true. However, the percentages that I have seen run to 10-15% radicalized Muslims out of the total. If there are a billion Muslims in the world, then there are 100-150 million radicals. Cut that in half to eliminate the women, and that leaves 50-75 million Muslim men who would just as soon kill us Westerns as look at us. Rather scary, isn’t it?
 
DaveBj said:
This is true. However, the percentages that I have seen run to 10-15% radicalized Muslims out of the total. If there are a billion Muslims in the world, then there are 100-150 million radicals. Cut that in half to eliminate the women, and that leaves 50-75 million Muslim men who would just as soon kill us Westerns as look at us. Rather scary, isn’t it?
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And that is why ISIS has no problem finding recruits!
 
All respect intended to the Vatican as I can see why this needed to be said diplomatically, but I’d imagine that if you were one of the Christians forced from their homes, holding their dead, decapitated child in their arm, or one of the ones who were about to be martyred for their faith because they refused to comply with ISIS’s demands to renounce Christianity and convert, you might reach a different conclusion than does the Secretary of State at the Vatican.
 
eltoro89 said:
All respect intended to the Vatican as I can see why this needed to be said diplomatically, but I’d imagine that if you were one of the Christians forced from their homes, holding their dead, decapitated child in their arm, or one of the ones who were about to be martyred for their faith because they refused to comply with ISIS’s demands to renounce Christianity and convert, you might reach a different conclusion than does the Secretary of State at the Vatican.
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👍 well said.
 
7_Sorrows said:
And that is why ISIS has no problem finding recruits!
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Beyond the executions, extortion, and so forth, ISIS is also doing a better-than-expected job of providing basic social services. So while there are clearly some highly visible people who became involved for strictly bloodthirsty reasons, it’s also quite likely that there are some other people who are attracted to ISIS because they see it as their region’s best chance for providing stability, law, and order (specifically to Sunni Islam). These not-bloodthirsty people are most likely a major part of the reason why social services and basic government are being taken care of in the first place, and it seems equally likely that the more-bloodthirsty members see the value of these people to their survival as an organization and are working to position them as well as possible.
 
DaveBj said:
This is true. However, the percentages that I have seen run to 10-15% radicalized Muslims out of the total. If there are a billion Muslims in the world, then there are 100-150 million radicals. Cut that in half to eliminate the women, and that leaves 50-75 million Muslim men who would just as soon kill us Westerns as look at us. Rather scary, isn’t it?
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Sadly, I think America and Britain created many radicals during the last Iraqi war. Thousand of innocent men, women and children died as a result of our invasion. We destabilised the region; there are around two million refugees, many fled Iraq to go to Syria. . How will they get justice, who will compensate them for their loss of family members, homes, jobs education, doctors etc?

There were no WMDs, we invaded on a flimsy pretext, if America and Britain spent billions or possibly trillions on the war, we should have achieved a far better outcome.

Now we live in fear of reprisal, and we blame radicals.

We pray for justice for all people, the same God created each and every one of us, the same God hears all our prayers, despite our differences.

I believe we need to strive for a greater interfaith cooperation.
 
Let’s look at the full context of the question and answer:

There are people who report on the events in Iraq as a clash between Christianity and Islam. Is this a correct view or is it an oversimplification?

“I believe it is an oversimplification. Recently, I have been reading some reports from the nuncio in Syria that explained how many Muslims are suffering for these events and are supportive of Christians. So this is definitely not a clash between Islam and Christianity. There are people within Islam, and I believe that they are the majority, who refuse these brutal and inhuman methods. Unfortunately, some factions make them their own but I believe that they are not condoned by most of the other Muslims. We hope that they will also speak up against this, to make a clear distinction between what can and what cannot be done, we hope that the Muslim world speaks up”.

I don’t see what there is to disagree with in what he said. It is a clash between some Muslims and some Christians, but it is not a clash between Islam and Christianity. That’s an important distinction to make.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
Sadly, I think America and Britain created many radicals during the last Iraqi war. Thousand of innocent men, women and children died as a result of our invasion. We destabilised the region; there are around two million refugees, many fled Iraq to go to Syria. . How will they get justice, who will compensate them for their loss of family members, homes, jobs education, doctors etc?

There were no WMDs, we invaded on a flimsy pretext, if America and Britain spent billions or possibly trillions on the war, we should have achieved a far better outcome.

Now we live in fear of reprisal, and we blame radicals.

We pray for justice for all people, the same God created each and every one of us, the same God hears all our prayers, despite our differences.

I believe we need to strive for a greater interfaith cooperation.
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And what people can’t see, because they’ve been overdosing on corporate media, is they are being played like a violin as we prepare for a run-up to another war.
 
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