The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Christians under attack – Al Jazeera report

Submitted by Ikram.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran (Vatican) – President, Council For Inter-religious Dialogue

The above link was posted by Rashid in a different thread.

The Cardinal sidestepped certain questions pertaining to Vatican view about whether Islam in an intolerant religion, potential attack on Iran by United States, message to Israeli authorities and how they deal with Christian communities, the concerns of Muslim about invasions into their countries etc.

The interview brought out certain pertinent points, though not in the interview but nevertheless relevant to the topic and are addressed below:

Failure of West to recognize that even though they might have separated Church and State from their own perspective, but the world has not. Any attack on Muslim country is perceived as an attack on Islam by Christianity. Then as a reaction, the Christians become target of reprisal attacks in communities which is obvious from Al Jazeera report:

According to the Vatican, more than half of Iraq’s Christians have left the country since the US-led invasion in 2003. On New Year’s, a bomb went off in a church in Egypt, killing at least 20 people. And in Nigeria a bomb destroyed a church on Christmas 2011, leaving 35 people dead.

Next time, when any Muslim country is attacked by a Western power, they must take the above facts into equation as for the Muslims the current wars might be a continuation of the crusades. If nothing else, the Vatican must disassociate itself from any Western Power that initiates war or imposes sanctions on others, excommunicate it when it breaks the Christian message of “love, peace and forgiveness” and Vatican itself must make unequivocal declaration that crusades have ended, rather than the sporadic vague apologies:

Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders…The Pope did not identify guilty individuals or name the crusades, the Inquisition or the Holocaust, but the references were clear…Pope Urban II, anxious to assert Rome’s authority in the east, sent a military expedition in 1095 to reconquer the holy land. The crusaders ravaged the countries they passed through and massacred the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian population of Jerusalem after capturing it in 1099. After 200 years of conflict Muslim armies drove them out for good, but the crusaders’ symbol of the red cross remains provocative. [Pope says sorry for sins of church – Sweeping apology for attacks on Jews, women and minorities defies theologians’ warnings – Rory Carroll in Rome, The Guardian, Monday 13 March 2000 06.37 EST]

Vatican has to end its dichotomy and wishy-washy stance on Palestine. Read, the following text of Al Jazeera with regards to Vatican view about state of Christians in Middle East:

“For me the great temptation for the Christians in the Middle East is to emigrate. I think if Christians would leave the Middle East, it would be a tragedy, because first of all they are leaving the earth where they were born because Christians have always been in the Middle East. And all the holy places would become museums and that would be a catastrophe… You cannot deny that they are the target of a kind of opposition. I have been in the Middle East for many years and what I felt was that Christians feel they are second-class citizens in countries where Muslims are the majority.”

Now for a brief moment, replace the word Christian with Palestinian (i.e. both Muslims and Christians) and replace Muslim with Jews, then on the same moral principles, Vatican must address the Israeli government:

“For me the great temptation for the Palestinians in the Middle East is to emigrate. I think if Palestinians would leave the Middle East, it would be a tragedy, because first of all they are leaving the earth where they were born because Palestinians have always been in the Middle East. And all the holy places would become museums and that would be a catastrophe… You cannot deny that they are the target of a kind of opposition. I have been in the Middle East for many years and what I felt was that Palestinians feel they are second-class citizens in countries where Jews are the majority.”

Vatican is making efforts for inter-faith harmony. Pope John Paul II did reach out to other religions including Muslims when he stated:

3. The Holy Spirit is not only present in other religions through authentic expressions of prayer. “The Spirit’s presence and activity”, as I wrote in the Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, “affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions” (n. 28).

Normally, “it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their own conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their Saviour (cf. Ad gentes, nn. 3, 9, 11)” (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue – Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Instruction Dialogue and Proclamation, 19 May 1991, n. 29; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 1 July 1991, p. III).

Similarly, the current Pope Benedict XVI stated:

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Whoever seeks peace and the good of the community with a pure conscience, and keeps alive the desire for the transcendent, will be saved even if he lacks biblical faith, says Benedict XVI.

These statement by Vatican are not too far from Quran:

2:62. Surely, those who (profess to) believe (in Islam), and those who follow the Jewish faith, the Christians and the Sabians, whosoever (of these truly) believes in Allâh and the Last Day and acts righteously shall have their reward with their Lord, and shall have nothing to fear, nor shall they grieve.

Al Jazeera quoted Pope Benedict, based upon Vatican transcripts that Pope either supports or re-quotes other experts for the verse “2:256 – There is no compulsion in religion” and that this verse (erroneously) belongs to Makkan period when Muhammad was powerless. Essentially, Vatican supports the abrogation dogma.

This is fundamentally where Vatican must be taking the opposite stand. The moment it does so, the Muslims themselves come into spot light. Imagine a debate where Robert Spencer is emphasizing that the verse 2:256 was never abrogated and that he cannot understand as to why an ignorant Mullah is targeting minorities in his country. What a spectacle would it be! A deer caught in the headlights. With this simple change of perspective, there will be beginnings of peace in Muslim lands, as it will pull the rug from beneath the Mullahs. Amen!

Since the dogma of abrogation is a favorite topic with Islam haters and Islam distorterers (from within Islam), it is part of discussion in Project Rebuttal – Issues 5, 9c and 21. The verse 2:256 has been addressed from different angles in Issues 4, 23, 25, 37a, 40a, 40b and 44b.

Q.E.D. How disastrous it becomes when man tampers with Word of Quran, in this instance the concept of abrogation of Quranic verses of peace and tolerance, thus creating a man made religion. Out of such tampering then naturally polytheistic tendencies take hold. The deities of hate, intolerance and vengeance gain footing into ones mind and belief systems. With passage of time man starts sacrificing everything to such false internal gods. Kalima Shahada – “There is no God, but Allah…” is the next victim as such internal gods now have to be bowed to, no matter what the cost to self or humanity. By then the priestly class has become the foremost advocates of such deities. Soon soulless homilies and rituals become more important than the soul of the religion. That’s when Islam of Moses changes to Judaism, of Jesus – Christianity, of Zoroaster – Zoroastrianism, of Rama/Krishna – Hinduism. Now its the turn of Islam of Muhammad. Is it not anything but Islam? Such is a natural decay of a religion which is essentially the job assignment of the Devil:

4:119. `And certainly, I will lead them astray and assuredly I will arouse vain desires in them, and I will incite them (to polytheistic practices)…

Allah can only stand behind and guarantee His own Laws and their outcome, not of that of man. No wonder every sin can be potentially forgiven in Quran but the sin of polytheism:

4:116. Allâh does not forgive (without repentance on the part of the sinner) that a partner be associated with Him though He forgives everything short of that to whomsoever He will. And he who associates a partner with Allâh has strayed, indeed, a far off straying.

Some might argue or complain against the unforgiving nature of Allah in the above verse, but that’s how His Laws stand. We see all the chaos in the world as a consequence of this very Law of His being broken with polytheism at the heart of it. It is a natural cause and effect. In physical world, one of His Law is that of Gravity. Next time, if one jumps off from a second storey of a building, that person will be lucky to walk off with just a sprained ankle. Similarly, the moral and spiritual laws have their own injuries when violated. Unlike human laws which have mostly negative consequences if broken, His Laws have rewards when followed:

2: 261. The attribute of those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allâh is like the attribute of a grain (of corn) which sprouts seven ears, each ear bearing a hundred grains. And Allâh multiplies further for whomsoever He pleases, for Allâh is Bountiful, All-Knowing.

verses quoted above are from the translation of Holy Quran – Nooruddin.