Rome Getting It Wrong on Islam

I have previously written two posts (Part 1, Part 2) on "Rome Getting It Right on Islam", praising the shift in official Vatican policy regarding Islam from Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI. Just when it looked like it was safe to loudly cheer Benedict's recent comments regarding Islam at a conference in Regensberg, Germany - comments that have rightly inflamed the Muslim world - it seems that what he has given on one hand, he has taken away with the other.

Daniel Pipes reports that in the wake of violence and condemnations in the Muslim world in response to Benedict's Regensburg address, the Roman Catholic pontiff has this past week acknowledged Islam's filial relationship to Christianity as a member of the Abrahamic faith. In his address to the Ambassadors to Rome from Muslim countries, Benedict reaffirmed the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate Declaration, which equates the Islamic Allah with the Christian God:

The Church looks upon Muslims with respect. They worship the one God living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humanity and to whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly, just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God.

Benedict went so far as to cite this conclusion as "the Magna Carta of the Muslim-Christian dialogue." This is clearly a step in the wrong direction, though he is following in the path of his predecessor, who said regarding Christians and Muslims while visiting Morocco in 1995, "we believe in the same God, the one God, the living God."

As we are engaged in the most recent phase combatting the 1400 year-long defense of the West against violent and aggressive Islamic imperialism, it is tempting to lose our nerve. In this case, Pope Benedict has lost his. The furor by Muslims over his recent comments has prompted him to retreat into the institutional complacency that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church for the past two hundred years. Benedict has shown signs of breaking this habit. He has made some bold steps to break with the policies of JPII in a short period of time. But this is a time for leadership, not safety.

Islam is not a step forward for monotheism, but is a retreat into paganism. This has been the unmistakable message of the Christian Church since the 7th Century. Benedict is in an unparalleled position to provide leadership the world by proclaiming Christian truth in the face of the Islamic threat to global civilization. He only squanders this opportunity by mau-mauing to the political correctness endemic to the Vatican diplomatic mandarins.