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A Key Change to "The Pope and the Koran"
The Rev. Joseph Fessio recounted on a talk-show on January 5 that, in a private seminar, Pope Benedict XVI said that Islam cannot change, a startling piece of information that I wrote up in a column, "The Pope and the Koran." In response, another participant at this Ratzinger-Sch?lerkreis seminar, Father Christian Troll, on January 17 sent a comment to my website disputing what Fr Fessio attributed to the pope. I posted Fr Troll's entire letter; its key element is the statement, "I cannot remember at all the Holy Father having said the words … that ‘There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it'."
In response, Fr Fessio wrote a letter to the Washington Times, published on January 21, making key changes to the record.
The most important clarification is that the Holy Father did not say, nor did I, that "Islam is incapable of reform." What I did say — and it contains an unfortunate ambiguity — is that
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.
Note first that it was the Koran that was referred to, not Islam. The comparison was between the Christian Bible and the Koran, not between Christianity and Islam. I said, paraphrasing the Holy Father, that "there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted to new situations." Then I maladroitly alluded to this comparison, referring to "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."
Fr Fessio then addresses the point raised by Fr Troll, agreeing with him:
I made a serious error in precision when I said that the Koran "cannot be adapted or applied" and that there is "no possibility of adapting or interpreting it." This is certainly not what the Holy Father said. Of course the Koran can be and has been interpreted and applied. I was making a (too) crude summary of the distinction that the Holy Father did make between the inner dynamism of the Koran as a divine text delivered as such to Mohammed, and that of the Bible, which is both the Word of God and the words of men inspired by God, within a community that contains divinely appointed authorized interpreters (the bishops in communion with the pope).
He concludes with an explanation and apology:
The meeting was an informal one of the Holy Father and his former students. The presentation and the discussion were in German, and the Holy Father was not speaking from a prepared text. My German is passable but not entirely reliable. My later remarks in a live radio interview were extemporaneous. I think I paraphrased the Holy Father with general accuracy, but it was an indiscretion for me to mention what he said at all, and my impromptu paraphrase in another language should not be used for a careful exegesis of the mind of the Holy Father.
Comment: This is major news, especially that part where Fr Fessio writes "Of course the Koran can be and has been interpreted and applied." It points to the pope's views being like mine, namely, that Islam can change. (January 21, 2006)

Jan. 23, 2006 update: An article by Sandro Magister, "Islam and Democracy, a Secret Meeting at Castelgandolfo," adds an 835-word excerpt from Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth. The Church at the End of the Millennium, an interview with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), that elaborates usefully on the pope's views on the rise of radical Islam:
I think that first we must recognize that Islam is not a uniform thing. In fact, there is no single authority for all Muslims, and for this reason dialogue with Islam is always dialogue with certain groups. No one can speak for Islam as a whole; it has, as it were, no commonly regarded orthodoxy. And, to prescind from the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, it also exists in many varieties. There is a noble Islam, embodied, for example, by the King of Morocco, and there is also the extremist, terrorist Islam, which, again, one must not identify with Islam as a whole, which would do it an injustice.
An important point, however, is [...] that the interplay of society, politics, and religion has a completely difference structure in Islam as a whole. Today's discussion in the West about the possibility of Islamic theological faculties, or about the idea of Islam as a legal entity, presupposes that all religions have basically the same structure, that they all fit into a democratic system with its regulations and the possibilities provided by these regulations. In itself, however, this necessarily contradicts the essence of Islam, which simply does not have the separation of the political and religious sphere which Christianity has had from the beginning. The Koran is a total religious law, which regulates the whole of political and social life and insists that the whole order of life be Islamic. Sharia shapes society from beginning to end. In this sense, it can exploit such partial freedoms as our constitution gives, but it can't be its final goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now we are present just like the Catholics and the Protestants. In such a situation, it would not achieve a status consistent with its inner nature; it would be in alienation from itself.
Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different from ours; it embraces simply everything. There is a very marked subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society. When one represents the situation in those terms, as often happens today, Islam is defined according to the Christian model and is not seen as it really is in itself. In this sense, the question of dialogue with Islam is naturally much more complicated than, for example, an internal dialogue among Christians.
The consolidation of Islam worldwide is a multifaceted phenomenon. On the one hand, financial factors play a role here. The financial power that the Arab countries have attained and that allows them to build large Mosques everywhere, to guarantee a presence of Muslim cultural institutes and more things of that sort. But that is certainly only one factor. The other is an enhanced identity, a new self-consciousness.
In the cultural situation of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until the 1960s, the superiority of the Christian countries was industrially, culturally, politically, and militarily so great that Islam was really forced into the second rank. Christianity – at any rate, civilizations with a Christian foundation – could present themselves as the victorious power in world history. But then the great moral crisis of the Western world, which appears to be the Christian world, broke out. In the face of the deep moral contradictions of the West and of its internal helplessness – which was suddenly opposed by a new economic power of the Arab countries – the Islamic soul reawakened. We are somebody too; we know who we are; our religion is holding its ground; you don't have one any longer.
This is actually the feeling today of the Muslim world: The Western countries are no longer capable of preaching a message of morality, but have only know-how to offer the world. The Christian religion has abdicated; it really no longer exists as a religion; the Christians no longer have a morality or a faith; all that's left are a few remains of some modern ideas of enlightenment; we have the religion that stands the test.
So the Muslims now have the consciousness that in reality Islam has remained in the end as the more vigorous religion and that they have something to say to the world, indeed, are the essential religious force of the future. Before, the shariah and all those things had already left the scene, in a sense; now there is a new pride. Thus a new zest, a new intensity about wanting to live Islam has awakened. This is its great power: We have a moral message that has existed without interruption since the prophets, and we will tell the world how to live it, whereas the Christians certainly can't. We must naturally come to terms with this inner power of Islam, which fascinates even academic circles.
Jan. 26, 2006 update: Sandro Magister records comments by three other participants (Stephan Horn of Germany, Gerald E. Nora of the United States, and Stefano Ceccanti of Italy) at the September 2005 seminar, all of whom confirm what Fathers Troll and Fessio now agree on.

 
Thoughts on Hamas' Ascendance
Voting today in the Palestinian Authority pits Fatah against Hamas. This face-off can be read as the corrupt, old-line Palestinian powerbroker versus the disciplined upstart, or as Yasir Arafat's ideologically flexible organization versus Ahmed Yassin's Islamist vehicle.
On the key question of their attitude toward Israel, Fatah is willing to negotiate with Israel to gain territory and other benefits, while Hamas on principle refuses to deal with the "Zionist entity." But the difference is between them is mostly illusory, as Fatah in fact engages in terrorism and Hamas does talk to the Israelis.
For reasons that somewhat escape my understanding, on this basis, Fatah is dubbed moderate and Hamas extremist; or, in the even more dramatic terms of an Associated Press headline today, "Palestinians choose between pursuing peace or confrontation with Israel." In fact, the differences between them are merely tactical; a more accurate headline would be "Palestinians choose between pursuing more overt or more covert destruction of Israel." Basically, Hamas speaks its mind and Fatah dares not. And Hamas provides the social services that Fatah cannot because its honchos have stolen the funds.
Ironically, this means that there is some reason to prefer Hamas to Fatah, for it prompts a more negative response from Israelis, Europeans, Americans, and others. But the New York Sun has already made this point for me a couple of days ago, in a house editorial titled "Recipe for Trouble":
a victory by Hamas, evil though the organization is, might not be all bad. At least then it would be clear to everyone what Israel is facing, an enemy committed to its complete destruction. … With Hamas in power, the Palestinian Authority could be seen, even by the American state department, for what it is, a terrorist state with the aim of destroying a free and democratic American ally. It would join the ranks of Iran and Syria as a rogue state that America would seek to isolate and roll back rather than subsidize with taxpayer dollars.
So, while I do not wish Hamas well in any manner at all (an article of mine appearing today in USA Today calls for it to be destroyed), there will likely be some benefit in having it complicit in the Palestinian Authority. (January 25, 2006)
 
 
Offer: $1 million for Finding "Jerusalem" in the Koran
For at least four years, Jamal Badawi, an Egyptian-born Canadian professor of management at St. Mary University in Halifax, Canada, who sidelines as an apologist for radical Islam, has made a standing offer: "a million dollars to anyone who finds the word of ‘holy war' in the Qur'an." Of course, Badawi is right: the Islamic scripture includes neither the words harb muqaddasa nor any synonyms.
In the same spirit, I offer a million dollars to anyone who finds the name "Jerusalem" (Iliya, Al-Quds, Bayt al-Maqdis), in the Koran. Metaphors, similes, allegories, allusions, and implicit references do not count (and specifically, not 17:1), only an accepted proper name referring to that city, using the standard Egyptian text. (January 4, 2006)
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