WaPo: Vatican Is Rethinking Relations With Islam

By Daniel Williams and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 15, 2005; Page A20

ROME, April 12 -- After two decades of contact and dialogue with the Islamic world under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican is rethinking an outreach program that critics say is diluting Catholicism and has brought almost no benefits to beleaguered Catholic minorities in Muslim countries.

The late pontiff undertook the drive as part of a broad effort to open channels to other religions. He applied a personal stamp by stepping into a mosque in Damascus and meeting with Muslim groups more than 60 times. He also visited a synagogue in Rome and Jerusalem's Western Wall.

Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said the next pope might more emphatically demand rights for Christian minorities in Islamic countries and the freedom of all people to choose their faith.

"There may be a greater insistence on religious liberty," said Fitzgerald, the church's point man on Islamic relations. "But I don't think we're going to go to war. The times of the Crusades are over. . . . I don't see any fundamental change in the way the church has been dealing with these questions."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55208-2005Apr14.html

Um...well, good thing for that, eh?

How many divisions does the Pope have anyway, Archbishop Fitzgerald?

Now the Vatican is going to go Neocon.

and other implements of destruction. Sounds like they're rolling up the "welcome" mat to me. No more "Mr. Nice Pope" at the Vatican....

who are suffering in Islamic lands?

Comments, anybody? This isn't a problem isolated to Catholics and it doesn't mean the Vatican has turned into a wing of the Republican party. It means, the Vatican is paying attention to people who are being victimized for being different.

This SHOULD get some attention and some sympathy from the Left.

RIGHT????

What about all of those people being kept in cages and being tortured down in Guantanamo?

Or the hundreds (if not thousands) secreted off and flown around by the U.S. government to be tortured in other countries?

What about the millions bombed, shocked, awed, invaded (and proselytized) and occupied (and the soon-to-be-invaded-and-proselytized-and-occupied)?

Any of those people being victimized? Who does the Vatican need to talk to about this?

But in various Muslim countries, including "close allies" of the US, it is a crime to practice Christianity in the privacy of your own home, it is a crime to proselytize Muslims for Christianity, it is a crime to publically criticize Islam or the Prophet, and it is a crime to become apostate from Islam -- and the latter two crimes are punishable by death in certain countries!

The Saudis will not allow you into their country if they know you are Jewish. The US oil companies that operate there are careful not to send Jewish employees on assignment there. The Germans had a word for this: Judenrein.

So while I am angry at the sins and crimes of my own government, I am glad that the Vatican -- which has consistently opposed our war in Iraq -- is willing to criticize (not invade, not bomb) those nations which deprive their minorities of human rights.

on edit: html glitch

Guantanamo does not involve unjust laws regarding religious practice -- it is the very annihilation of law and the evisceration of centuries of struggles for human rights.

Would that those who are caged at Guantanamo prefer not to be allowed into the U.S. -- but they were seized overseas and taken there, and are now being threatened with life imprisonment and death.

There appears to be a need to divert attention from the elephant standing in the middle of the room.

Read the fucking thread.

You're funny! :)

Apparently, you cannot read.

Or I wouldn't be able to reply to your posts. I fail to see why you're bringing up Guantanamo Bay in a post that has NOTHING to do with it.

Yes the actions there are horrible, but that isn't relevant to the post, correct?

Obviously you have a problem staying on topic.

mention, and they DO constitute human rights violations. The Vatican has been grievously remiss in the past about not speaking for the weak, and it needs to review its policy.

Guilt on our part about the war in Iraq, and the human rights abuses that follow from the invasion, is entirely appropriate. Since God already talks to our President, though, he would probably regard a call from the Vatican as redundant:)

However, the topic of the article regards discrimination and abuse within Islamic countries, and that is a valid topic for discussion. I've seen LOTS of research about this lately, it's a serious thing. Moderate Muslims are concerned about it also.

give more protection to its Christian minorities.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/08/08_503.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0421/p06s01-wome.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3526386.stm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1257792.htm
http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2005/03/2385.shtml

Man in shadows: has the new body armor come in yet?

Lacky: yes sir!

Man in shadows: what about the shoulder fired rockets?

Lacky: yes sir!

Man in shadows: Alright then...everything set up with the networks?

Lacky: yes sir! you are on in 10 seconds...

Man in shadows: how's my hair? Do I look peppy enough?

Lacky: Smile more...

Man in shadows: I'll take that under concideration...

Lacky: 5, 4, 3...Your on!

Lights come up in the studio.

Man in shadows is wearing a pope hat.

Man in shadows/new pope: Hi everybody!

Audience: Hi, Pope Nick!

They will continue to deal with them for many more.

Literally, fuck them, all the patriarchal dogmas, all the fundie catholics, wahhabits and southern baptists.

I preach equality, regardles of gender, regardles of sexual lenience.

I do not preach tolerance, because to tolarate is to err, to sin, to put yourself above your fellow man.

I preach equality, Christ or Buddha-nature in each of us sentient beings.

ready to go for the worsening of relations!!!