Pope refutes idea of moderate Islam

Dynamite news. At a scholarly meeting in Italy last summer, Pope Benedict decisively rejected the notion that Islam can somehow re-interpret its laws so as to make itself be more in conformity with the modern world and less of a danger to non-Muslims. The information comes from Fr. Joseph Fessio, Provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, who was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt. Below I quote the key part of the interview.

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.

Finally, there is a Western leader—in fact the Western leader—who recognizes the truth that Islam is what it is, that it has a specific origin and character and nature and that it cannot change, so long as it remains Islam. Though the Pope would not use such words, he clearly understands that Islam is our eternal adversary, and that we must seek, not to have a “peace process” with it, which only weakens ourselves and strengthens the Muslims, but to defend ourselves from it.

It’s striking that Hugh Hewitt, a hardline supporter of President Bush, did not react against Fr. Fessio’s extremely politically incorrect message, a message that not only refutes the hope of moderate Islam, but, in so doing, refutes the hope of Muslim democratization and the hope of Muslim integration into the West. Hewitt let Fr. Fessio have his say, and for this he deserves much credit.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 06, 2006 03:16 PM | Send