Libya: a just war?

William Oddie, an eminent precursor on the road to Rome, argues that the air strikes on Libya meet the Catholic church's five criteria for a just war. He writes persuasively, but I find that the argument falls short.

One point, not the most important: in his enthusiasm for smart weapons which can take out tanks with a minimum of risk to civilians, Dr Oddie seems to forget that the youing men inside the tank get taken out too. True, they are combatants, and true, they may have much civilian blood on their hands, but it is still not permissible to dismiss their lives as of no account.

The more crucial point arises from the unpacking of the notion that the intervention is all about "protecting civilians". For we are not doing that in any direct way, by building bomb shelters for them or evacuating them. We are taking out tanks, and whilst tanks are useful for massacring civilians they are by no means essential. So if we are protecting civilians it is by the indirect means of enabling the rebels to beat back Gaddafi's forces. And since that is the case I think it is absurd to suggest, as Dr Oddie does, that we can bracket out any concerns about the outcome of the conflict.

Here's one outcome: we decide at some point that we have done enough bombing, whereupon the tide immediately turns in Gaddafi's favour. What's to stop him carrying through all the massacres he had planned in the first place, plus a few extra since the bombing will have given him and his supporters many more scores to settle?

Outcome two: when we stop bombing we leave a standoff which will be resolved, if at all, only after an indeterminate period of civil war. What are the chances that this will further the protection of civilians?

Outcome three: we enable the rebels to overthrow Gaddafi and form a government. But Gaddafi's supporters now turn insurgent. Iraq all over again. Same question as in outcome two.

Outcome four: the rebels manage to utterly defeat Gaddafi and his forces (though miraculously without killing large numbers of his civilian supporters). However, because the rebels are a hopelessly disparate bunch containing everything from pro-Western liberals to al Qaidists, they turn against each other as soon as Gaddafi has fallen and plunge the country into continued civil war. Same question again.

Outcome five: Gaddafi utterly defeated, but this time the rebels hold together and form an effective government. But the bad news is that it turns out that the al Qaidists are the predominant force among them. The government is more repressive even than Gaddafi's. All dissent is met with massacres.

Outcome six: under the impact of the bombing Gaddafi has a change of heart and sues for peace. A peace conference is held at which all parties agree to forego reprisals and hold free elections. An elected government takes power and duly submits to the verdict of the voters five years later. The people of Libya live happily ever after.

So one scenario out of six in which the criterion for a just cause to which Dr Oddie refers - "prevention of a worse evil" - is met. Is there as much as a one in six chance of it turning out that way? I doubt whether the Sarbameron troika are that sanguine, and it's very clear that the Pope isn't. Dr Oddie knows very well what a wise man the Pope is; he and many others should not resist being guided by that wisdom now.

On the murder of 21 Christians

In the first place:-

'intermarriage between Coptic men and Muslim women is illegal.'

- from Time magazine



In the second place:-

The Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
(September 15, 1935)

Entirely convinced that the purity of German blood is essential to the further existence of the German people, and inspired by the uncompromising determination to safeguard the future of the German nation, the Reichstag has unanimously resolved upon the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

Section 1

Marriages between Jews and citizens (German: Staatsangehörige) of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad.

(source: Wikipedia)


In the third place:-

'We know the long and honourable history of co-existence of Christians and Muslims in Egypt and are confident that the overwhelming majority of Egyptian people will join in condemning this and similar acts.'

- the Archbishop of Canterbury, from his statement on the Alexandria church bombing.

Now I'm not expecting Rowan Williams to say something inflammatory. But waffle as mendacious as this is worse than silence.

There's some good background stuff at the Guardian, to give it its due - here and here. Another sample of that honourable co-existence:-

'Egypt's Christians have played as big a part in the recent demographic explosion as their fellow Muslims, but whereas new mosques are built and renovated freely, Christians have to navigate a bewilderingly web of bureaucracy to secure permission for construction. There are an estimated 2,000 churches in Egypt today, alongside 93,000 mosques.'

So 1 church for every 46-and-a-half mosques. One Egyptian in ten is Christian.

'Pontiff: Christians are most persecuted'

- so runs the front page headline in the Christmas edition of the Catholic Herald, over a report on the Pope's World Peace Day message, dated 8 December. Can we agree that Pope Benedict is not quite as out of touch as he's often painted? It's good that this is said, not because it's good for Christians to be trying to face down others in a game of victimhood poker, but because it's manifestly true.

Both the Pope and Rowan Williams have been at pains to further Christian-Muslim dialogue, and that is also a good thing. But only one of them seems prepared to say plainly that there can be no dialogue where one party is holding a pistol to the other's head.

As for the BBC and its talk of sectarian tensions...

When I entered "Islamophobia" into the BBC News search engine it offered me 171 hits in the blink of an eye. Then I tried "Christophobia"; I thought I would have to give this up as a bad job after it had pondered for five minutes, but eventually it dredged up three hits from 2004 and 2006.

Those who have introduced "Islamophobia" into our political discourse have been spectacularly successful in framing the terms of debate about the relationship between British Muslims and the rest of society. This has happened in spite of our Muslim communities never - thank God - having had to face anything remotely comparable to the Alexandria church bombing. If a bomb ever did claim 21 lives at a British mosque, can there be the slightest doubt that for the BBC it would be an "Islamophobia" story and not a "sectarian tensions" one?

A warm welcome to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

At least that's what I call him. What Stephen Fry and friends call him is "Pope Ratzinger".

Isn't the oafishness of that the most revealing moment in their letter? It reminds me of nothing so much as the Koran-burning antics of Pastor Terry Jones. The same gratuitous bad manners, betraying the same inability to deal on a human level with the existence of persons who sincerely hold different beliefs from oneself - in a word, intolerance.

Unlike Jones, though, Fry and Co. are members of a cultural and intellectual elite who have no excuse for ignorance. Also unlike him, they have not and will not trigger a frantic damage-limitation exercise. They will not need to lose any sleep over the possible consequences of sticking two fingers up at a billion Catholics.


Well, it ought to have at least one consequence. The ayatollahs of secular liberalism have it in for all Christians who are not prepared to swallow their agenda whole; the Pope is just a particularly potent symbol. Deo volente I'll be in the West End tomorrow evening to wave to him, and I hope to have plenty of non-Catholics for company.

NO POPERY: a liberal fatwa

With the round robin letter published in today's Guardian, the anti-Pope campaign cranks up to a shrill crescendo (I'm sure there's worse to come over the next few days, though). That not just the likes of Stephen Fry and Johann Hari but so many of the Great and the Good have deemed it worthy of their signatures is a depressing commentary on the state of intellectual life in Britain.

Practically every sentence cries out for fisking, but I'll be selective.

Among the misdeeds laid at B16's door is...

'Opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of Aids.'

So if you come from a large family in a poor country, you can rejoice in the knowledge that all these movers and shakers consider you surplus to requirements.

Here, of course, we have plenty of condoms and plenty of Aids. Is it too much to ask for just a little humility from the ayatollahs of secular liberalism?

Another grievance, and a decidedly bizarre one:-

'In any case, we reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican.'

Riiight. So how, exactly, do we identify proper states? By the blushing diffidence with which they surrender any claims to international influence?

This one goes without saying:-

'Failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.'

Now because this is a debate in which no benefit of the doubt is ever extended to anyone who speaks up for the Pope, let me say at once that this is a serious matter which has been dreadfully mishandled by the Church. However, the accusation that he has failed to address it is simply untrue.

And let us take a look at the glass house from which the stones pour forth. Did I mention that Peter Tatchell is one of the signatories? Did I need to? In fact I strongly suspect that the wording is his. Now in 2008 Mr Tatchell had an article published in an Irish paper in which he argued that the law should allow adults to have sexual access to fourteen year olds. As he points out in the article, this is an issue on which he has campaigned since the 1990s. In 1997 the following appeared in a letter to the Guardian from Tatchell (at least Peter Hitchens says it was a letter, I remember it as an article):-

'The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy.

'While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.'

I'd really like to see some of the Professors, Baronesses and Lords who have signed the round robin letter confronted with this quote and asked to defend their association with its author in a campaign ostensibly motivated by concern over child abuse. If this happens on the BBC or Channel 4 (which recently screened a hatchet job on the Pope fronted by... Peter Tatchell) I'll eat my hat. Mr Tatchell is Teflon Man incarnate.

Doubtless the Professors, Baronesses and Lords would, if put on the spot, counter by asking what this has to do with children being raped by priests. But that would be sophistry. The roll of shame of priestly rapes (and however much exaggeration of the figures has gone on the real ones are shocking enough) includes every case where a child was subjected to penetrative sex. Consent is irrelevant since the law deems children incapable of giving it.

Change the law, though, and you convert large numbers of priests from abusers to legal lovers. For example, in one of the US cases which was talked up in the hope (I use the word 100% advisedly) that the Pope could be incriminated, one of the victims recalled that he hadn't liked to say no because the priest was such a nice guy. Well, consent is consent. Plenty of adult sex happens on the same basis. Of course he had subsequently regretted it, but you can't have it both ways. If consent is valid you can't allow those who have given it to retrospectively cry "rape".

I would not dream of suggesting that Peter Tatchell has ever had nefarious designs on fourteen year olds. If he had, though, he could hardly have supplied himself with a more perfectly self-serving argument than this one (from the Irish Independent piece):-

'This sexual disempowerment of young people [by an age of consent set at 17 in Ireland] plays into the hands of adults who want to abuse them. Guilt and shame about sex also increase the likelihood of molestation by encouraging the furtiveness and secrecy on which abuse thrives.

'One way to protect young people against unwanted sexual advances is by promoting sex-affirmative attitudes which challenge the idea that sex is something sordid, and by empowering teenagers to stand up for their sexual rights. Sexually informed and confident youngsters are more likely to resist sexual exploitation.'

So the way to protect kids from abuse is by redefining it so that adults who succeed in persuading them that they want sex aren't guilty of it at all.

Sexual empowerment is for adults. Children have one sexual right and it is the right to be protected from sex. Blur that distinction and you start sliding towards the rationalizations of the paedophile in denial.

To sum up: I'm not the only person who remembers reading the Guardian in 1997. You can bet that 80-90% of the signatories to the letter did. If the campaign against the Papal Visit was really about protecting children, they'd have quietly ensured Peter Tatchell wasn't invited to sign. My suggestion is that they didn't because it isn't.

I have more on the letter but this is already a longish post. Another to follow, time permitting.

The rules for them and the rules for us

A senior Islamic cleric is about to pay Britain a visit, so the BBC marks the event by polling British Muslims on whether their faith has been shaken by the scale of Islamist terrorism. You can just see it, can't you?

The Pope on racism

From a sermon on the second creation story in Genesis 2:-

'Thus the unity of the whole human race at once becomes visible: we are all made from one earth. There are no varying forms of "blood and soil". There are no fundamental differences between one group of human beings and another, as the myths of so many religions thought and as worldviews of our time also claim. There are no differences of caste and race which make people different in their value. We are all one humanity, formed out of God's one earth. [...] The Bible says an unequivocal "No" to every kind of racism, to every division of the human race.'

(Joseph Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI: Berührt vom Unsichtbaren, Freiburg im Breisgau 2000/2005, p. 61, my translation)

Don't mention the Pope

It's suited all kinds of agendas to spin the case of the Holocaust-denying bishop as being about the Pope's less than unequivocal rejection of Holocaust denial. Religiophobes, anti-Catholics, anti-Pope Catholic liberals and - it must be said - overreacting Jews have all joined in the fun, and have not allowed it to be spoiled by mere facts. For, however misguided one may judge Pope Benedict to have been, his decision to lift the excommunication of the Society of St Pius X plainly had nothing whatsoever to do with Richard Williamson's odious views.

That the Pope has been breathtakingly badly advised hardly needs saying. Beyond that, I suspect that a very human desire to have people on his side has made him too ready to assume that the traditionalisms of others are as rational and generous as his own. Where the SSPX are concerned that is plainly very far from the case. But a sympathizer with Holocaust denial he emphatically is not.


One thing I, for my own personal reasons, find particularly objectionable about this spinfest is the way the Pope's nationality has been dragged in. Sometimes it's been pious exhortations to him that as a German he ought to know better, sometimes 'what can you expect from someone who was in the Hitler Youth?' insinuations.

Well, actually, everyone ought to know better, be they German, British or Iranian. And what you can expect from Benedict is to view that part of his country's past with the same horror and shame as any well-informed and decent present-day German. So can we move on from the Basil Fawlty complex, please? Fat chance, when we're educating a generation for whom the Third Reich is all they know about Germany and practically all they know about the history of anywhere.

It's not the Hitler Youth but Winchester and Cambridge we have to thank for the Holocaust-denying bishop. If there's a nation which deserves to be embarrassed on this score it isn't Germany.

Confessions of an Anglican Pope fan

Being a post in three loosely connected parts, starting with:-

'But what is most striking, as hundreds of thousands observe this Pope in person for the first time, is not the visual symbolism, the crowds or the made-for-TV events, but the imposing beauty and power of his words.

'It’s already a cliché in Rome that the crowds came to see John Paul but they come to hear Benedict. Among those familiar with his career, his reputation was always that of a fierce intellectual — the theologian and author of dozens of dense tracts on Christianity. But what was missing was an understanding of Benedict’s remarkable capacity to use words to speak to the emotional part of the human brain.'

- Gerard Baker in the Times.

How true this is. I feel immensely privileged to be able read him in the original - he writes like an angel in his native tongue - but I think the clarity of his prose is such that he also translates well. Apart from his two encyclicals (read them online) I'd recommend this (the only one you're likely to find in your local bookshop, sadly), this, this, this, this and this (we make no charge to Amazon for this service). Let's face it, I'm hooked.


Part Two

From the Pope's Pesah message to the Jewish community:-

'At this time of your most solemn celebration, I feel particularly close, precisely because of what Nostra Aetate calls Christians to remember always: that the Church “received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles” (Nostra Aetate, 4). In addressing myself to you I wish to re-affirm the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and reiterate the Church’s commitment to the dialogue that in the past forty years has fundamentally changed our relationship for the better.'

Which is important in view of the somewhat overwrought reactions there have been to the new prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the Latin liturgy for Good Friday. It's been suggested that the very idea of conversion represents a regression to the bad old pre-Vatican days.

This article makes a good job of answering these concerns. For better or worse, the Pope is indeed a Catholic. He believes in the universality of the Christian Gospel. It is Good News for everyone. The way it has been 'preached' to the Jews in the past has, of course, frequently been anything but good news. Vatican II marked a clear repentant break with that shameful history. There must be no place for any form of coercion or manipulation in converting anybody, nor for defamation of their existing beliefs. But still we need to say that the Gospel is distinct from its past abuse and that we cannot agree to throw the baby out with the bathwater, even if that distinction is extremely hard for Jews to accept. To say the Gospel can't be, or need not be, preached to the Jews is actually to say that it's not much use to anybody else.


Part Three

I've recently been pointed towards a batch of German Catholic blogs. I hope the author of this post won't mind me taking the liberty of translating it in its entirety. You just need to know that 'Wir sind Kirche' ('We are Church') is a liberal Catholic pressure group. The quote from them, part of their appraisal of B16's first three years, could just as easily be from (for instance) the Affirming Catholics, fellow enthusiasts for a church as broad as the Zeitgeist - but no broader. Joseph Ratzinger's been the man these folk love to hate for a long, long time, and a rethink is not in prospect.


'Learning from Life

'"The Church and Catholics can learn from the world as well as just teaching it. Therefore they need to display a positive attitude towards encounter and dialogue, illuminated not by a rigid doctrine but by a faith which learns from life." (German source)

'Agreed, it's not altogether fair to use an extreme case against the simplifiers and muddlers of "Wir sind Kirche", and I am sure they find it just as repulsive as the rest of us. But is it not, perhaps, events like this which make it clear where we stand? The project in question received the blessing of one of the large and highly-respected institutions of the secular intellect, and thus, whilst it may be a little weird, it is evidently compatible with the mainstream of contemporary thinking and feeling.

'Aliza Shvarts, an art student at Yale University, New Haven, CT, will be presenting her senior art project in the next few days:

'"a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process." - Source: Yale Daily News via Creative Minority Report)'

Still Time for a Quickie

'The Pope's expression of regret is welcome, even if there is some doubt as to whether it goes far enough to soothe Muslim sensibilities. Several burnt-out churches and a dead nun have, we must hope, taught him a painful but necessary lesson. Any utterance which can be interpreted as implying that Islam is an intrinsically violent religion is as unwise and unhelpful as it is incorrect.'

(all the usual suspects)

'How many fingers, Winston?'


Update: the first quote was kindly produced for me by my personal copy of the Grauniad Editorial Generator. Whereas this is the genuine article:

'When he digs out a 700-year-old sentence that could not be more damning of Islam - "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached" - he has to know there will be consequences.'

Muslims in 'Pope is a Catholic' storm

Well, I'd been planning to link to the Pope's Regensburg lecture since I saw him delivering it live on TV. In my humble opinion it's a fine piece of theological reasoning. I was also impressed by the sermon he preached earlier the same day.

And, yes, I did have a feeling there was going to be trouble. Funny, isn't it, that although the lecture contains a lot more criticism of western secularism than of Islam, it somehow never occurred to me that the trouble might come in the form of enraged atheists firebombing churches? Or that Catholics would interpret the lecture as giving them the green light to shoot an imam or two?

It's one of those occasions when I look to the bloggers to preserve my sanity.

At Harry's Place Brownie simply puts the 'offending' quote in context and asks 'So...what exactly is the problem?'

Shuggy is spot on:-

'At the close of his speech he said:

'"It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university."

'It wouldn't be this task of the university - to join the general conversation of mankind - that the Islamists are afraid of, would it?

'No doubt the usual 'liberals' will, in that special pained sort of way they have, 'regret' the insensitivity of the Pope's remarks. In anticipation of this I can only insist on the following. We are not talking about a few infantile cartoons being published in a provincial European newspaper now, this shifts it to fundamentals: you either believe in free speech or you do not; you either believe in academic and intellectual freedom or you do not; and you either believe in the freedom of religion or you do not. And if you chose the censorious path, let's hear a respectable intellectual argument that does not rest solely on accusations of racism. Oh, and don't call yourself a liberal - don't you dare.'

As is Laban Tall:-

'Because this isn't about peaceful co-existence. This is about imposing one's will on the spiritual enemy. In fact, the greater the apology, the less likely it is to be accepted - because it's taken as a sign of weakness, to be exploited further.

'No religion has been mocked and vilified more in the last 40 years than Christianity. And it continues - because the consequences don't involve bodies with knives pinning notes to their chests, decapitation, explosions, burning buildings or trains.

'Faced with such things, Western society retreats, draws back, self-censors - engendering a sense among the bad hats (and among those who share the aim even while having reservations about the method) that there is no limit to the retreat - no ground on which the enemy will turn, stand and fight.'

In a situation where the Pope is simultaneously being compared with Hitler and accused of Zionism, satire is pretty much superfluous here, but Simply Jews are not to be deterred.

Thank heaven for the blogs, because without them we'd be left at the mercy of the msm.

Take, for instance, today's al-Grauniad. Not only do we have Karen Armstrong grinding out her one tune (Islam is peaceful, and if it's not it's our fault) but John Hooper is encouraging the Jews to show a bit of solidarity with the Muslims. Because now the Pope's been quoting the rabidly anti-Semitic St Paul. This must take the biscuit for cynical opportunism even by al-G standards. Mr Hooper prefers not to spoil his point by mentioning that Paul was, like Jesus, his disciples and all the authors of the New Testament, Jewish.

Ruth Gledhill in the Times claims that the Pope's Quranic scholarship is suspect. Well, that's fair enough, and he's positively inviting dialogue with Muslim scholars on that level. But let's spell out once again the precondition for that kind of conversation: all sides are free to speak their mind without facing the threat of violence. In Ms Gledhill's piece that takes a back seat to Pope-bashing.

In the real world outside the blogosphere, is there anybody manning the barricades for freedom?

Not the trendy Christian liberals who've seized the opportunity to stick the boot into Ratzi -dishonourable mentions for Giles Fraser, chaplain to al-Grauniad, and the Pope's old antagonist Hans Küng (see the Ruth Gledhill piece). Here's a vintage Fraserism:

'For in claiming that Islam may be beyond reason, and then to claim that to act without reason is to act contrary to the will of God, is pretty close to the assertion that this religion is godless. And that's not how different faiths ought to speak to each other - especially when we all have each other's blood on our hands.'

So, Dr Fraser, scourge of the conservative evangelicals: when Iranian zealots string up gay teenagers, do they serve the living God or an idol of their own imagining? Tricky one, huh? Remember: engage brain before opening mouth.

Who's manning the barricades? In German politics, not Renate Künast, leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, who called for an apology, and thinks that the Pope has not only the Crusades but the Irish civil war (sic) and the invasion of Iraq on his conscience (German source here). Bad news for Germans who want to save the planet without surrendering their democratic rights.

You'd expect the Christian Democrats to do better and they do. Chancellor Angela Merkel has stood up for the Pope, whilst the party's General Secretary, Ronald Pofalla, says: 'All those who are now attacking him don't want dialogue, but an intimidated and silenced West'. (German source here)

Credit is due too, perhaps less predictably, to Lale Akgün, Muslim Affairs spokesman for the Social Democrats:

'Look, there are three and a half million Muslims living in Germany, over 20 million in Europe. These are not small numbers. That means we have no alternative to convincing the majority of comparatively apathetic Muslims of the need to accept and show the peaceful face of Islam. [...] We must simply ensure that those who are rather indifferent to religion, who tend to fight shy of religion, take an active stand, that we persuade them to join with us in developing an Islam in Europe which is compatible with democracy, with human rights, with women's rights. And which is also prepared to submit itself to discussion, prepared to accept other opinions or at least agree to disagree.'

(my translation, original here)

OK, it's not a great advertisement for a belief system if you have to look to the apathetic to salvage some basic decency. Never mind, he's on the right side.

Returning to the UK papers, the Observer's Will Hutton gives us a mixed bag. He's been reading a book by a progressive Muslim, and he desperately wants to believe its message:-

'Nor is Islam less able [than Christianity or Judaism] to accommodate reason or Enlightenment values.'

Well, I'd very much like to believe it too. Mr Hutton should carry on reading, and if he will add the New Testament and the Quran to his reading list he can, I hope, correct his impression that they are both equally guilty of glorifying violence (see below).

Still, he does get it to this extent...

'Aslan is persuasive, but the reaction of some Islamic leaders to the Pope's incitement belies his optimism. They can choose to ignore the pontiff, challenge him or demonstrate through reference to Islam's own teachings that he is wrong. Instead, they stress the enormous offence that has been given. There is no sense here of a commitment to pluralism or mutual tolerance.

[...]

'The principle of tolerance is one on which the West can never compromise. The Pope was right on one thing, though; the West, its religions included, accepts the grandeur of reason. So, ultimately, must Islam.'

And there's William Rees-Mogg in today's Times. 10 out of 10. I fear he may be a little long in the tooth to be manning the barricades, but then so is the Holy Father, and with so many 'liberals' deserting the cause of liberty we need everyone we can get...

'The Pope’s actual quotation is not just a medieval point of view. It is a common modern view; even if it seldom reaches print; it can certainly be found on the internet. “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and then you shall find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

'Is it true that the Koran contains such a command, and has it influenced modern terrorists? The answers, unfortunately, are “yes” and “yes”.

'The so-called Sword Verse from Chapter 9 must have been in the emperor’s mind: “So when the sacred months have passed away, Then slay the idolaters wherever you find them.

'“And take them captive and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush.”

'This does shock many Muslims: extremists are angered by the implied criticism of those who quote it, while moderates who cannot disavow the terms of the Koran prefer more evasive interpretations. The shock it creates shows the importance of the doctrine.'

Lest the barricades stuff comes across as a mite hysterical, let a correspondent to the same paper have the final word:-

'Sir, The Pope did not give offence (reports, Comment and leading article, Sept 16): his enemies took it.

'Taking offence is a blackmail strategy and any excuse, real or imagined, will do: it is seen in the belligerent drunk, growling “What are you lookin’ at?” or the gang member who draws a knife because he has been “dissed”. It works because polite, educated respondents try to treat this as a real question, to apologise and negotiate.

'You cannot negotiate with a drunk or a knife, and you cannot negotiate with those who manufacture offence as a weapon.'

It's Religion of Peace time again

'You can bet your life that by the time you read this, some Catholic priest toiling away in a godforsaken, dusty hellhole — Sudan, perhaps, or Turkey — will have been smacked about a bit, or had his church burnt down or been arrested without charge. The Pope should have been aware that Islam always reacts to western allegations that it is not a peaceful religion by mass outbreaks of vituperation, denunciation and acts of jihadic violence.'

- Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times.

It was Somalia, actually. She was an elderly nun. The scene was a children's hospital. She was shot three times in the back. The burnt down churches hardly seem worth mentioning - they can be rebuilt, after all.

This is what Christians understand by the word 'martyrdom'. If you think it is islamophobic to suggest that the Muslim understanding is somewhat different, I respectfully recommend that you go and read the Quran.

And Muslims who sincerely wish to demonstrate that theirs is a religion of peace have now really got something to protest about, haven't they?

The gunmen knew not what they did, I dare say. Somalia is among the most brutalized societies on Earth, and the average level of education is not high. Those who have been orchestrating the protests from more comfortable locations know very well what they are doing. May God have mercy on their souls.

More soon.

The Pope at Auschwitz: a response to Oliver Kamm

We all have our blind spots. For my money Oliver Kamm, nemesis of the World's Leading Public Intellectual, has one of the sharpest brains in the blogosphere. But when I read his Times article on the Pope's visit to Auschwitz, some of his reasoning left me wondering whether he has been reading too much Chomsky for his own good.

He perorates thus:-

'Pope Benedict pointed at Auschwitz to literally the worst crime of our age, which was committed by those who certainly considered themselves emancipated from superstition, and the agents of supposedly scientific notions of race.

'But no amount of theological reflection will render future generations immune from the atavistic forces that aimed at the destruction of every last Jew in Europe, and to which the Church certainly made a historical contribution. I have no interest at all in the fortunes of Judaism, but a great concern in the resilience of historically persecuted peoples. Only by removing the accumulated detritus of malign ideologies can that happen.

'Organised religion, even in the form of so learned a man as Pope Benedict, is one of the obstacles. Revealed truth cannot be discarded, precisely because it does not come from human reason: it can only be accepted or rationalised. Yet revelation turns out to be a highly unreliable guide. There was no revelation to the Catholic faithful till Vatican II that the Jews were not Christ-killers. There has never yet been a divine revelation, to my knowledge, that freedom of speech, tolerance and religious liberty are values to be prized and defended. If there ever is, it will paradoxically be because the way liberal civilisation operates has superseded the traditional religious imagination. It is time it did.'

My head's spinning. Kamm starts out here with the acknowledgement that the Holocaust was the work of people who consciously rejected the claims of organized revealed religion. Two paragraphs later he has arrived at the contention that if we are to prevent future Holocausts we must dispense with... organized revealed religion.

It's not easy to respond to a generalized attack on revealed religion, because one cannot very sensibly do so with a generalized defence of it. The only thing that can unequivocally be said in favour of a claim to divine revelation is that it happens to be true. But since there exists a plurality of such claims and they are frequently mutually contradictory, to uphold one claim is necessarily to reject others (unless one adopts the unconvincing syncretist postion of denying the contradictions), and having done that one is an easy target for the charge of intolerance . However much one insists that one upholds the right of others to believe in their false revelations, the suspicion lingers that one doesn't really mean it.

Nevertheless I must declare myself a believer in the truth claims of the religion which I practise. Provisionally and tentatively, I would assert the following at least as working hypotheses:- God's covenant with Israel is a genuine revelation of God and one which remains valid and sufficient for the Jewish people. The life, teaching, cross and resurrection of Christ constitute God's definitive revelation to mankind - definitive in being the self-incarnation of God and in its universality. The Quran, and the faith tradition built on it, contains valid religious insights, but its claim to the status of divine revelation is one which, because it explicitly contradicts the central claims of Christianity, I must respectfully reject.

From my reading of the Pope I think this would also pass muster as a crude thumbnail sketch of his views.

As a fairly recent convert I'm well aware of the difficulties thrown up by the idea of divine revelation. I'll just say here that it does not seem to me inherently unreasonable to believe that the claims of a particular revealed religion are true and those of others are false. This belief does not require me to be intolerant of adherents of the religions which I reject. It also does not entail the belief that the possession of revelation enables Christians to dispense with the exercise of reason, nor that when they exercise reason they always do so correctly. And indeed this is a powerful argument for tolerance. For it is always perfectly possible that in a particular argument I will want to side with non-Christians against Christians.

Before coming to their failings, there is after all something to be said in favour of revealed religions in general. They have consistently been sources of immense cultural vitality and creativity. Kamm professes indifference to the fortunes of Judaism, but can he really be indifferent to the very existence of Jewish culture and identity, which would long since have faded away had it not been for Jews' extraordinarily tenacious loyalty to the revelation contained in the Torah? For centuries the simple act of accepting baptism held out the promise of an immediate end to persecution, and yet it was steadfastly rejected.

It is clear that revealed religions have prompted and condoned innumerable crimes against humanity. Kamm rightly points to the history of Christian treatment of the Jews as an egregious example, even if the record is considerably less black and white than he implies. But something else should be equally clear, though it consistently turns out to be the point at which rationalists like Oliver Kamm display the limitations of their rationality. That is the fact that the era which saw a turning of the intellectual tide against revealed religion was also marked - and not coincidentally - by crimes against humanity on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

When men started believing that human will and human reason were the only guides they required for their actions, there was nothing to prevent some of them from literally giving themselves an unrestricted licence to kill.

That the Marxism of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot left no space for God hardly needs saying. And for all that OK insinuates that he was some kind of residual Catholic, I'm not aware of a shred of evidence that Adolf Hitler considered himself in any way accountable to a God-given moral code.

To say that the Church 'made a historical contribution' is very different from making it directly responsible for the reality of genocide. We can all agree that the project of punishing the Jews for theological recalcitrance was abhorrent, but it was not a project of racial extermination. Conversely, theology was not on the agenda at the Wannsee Conference. Whatever the correct assessment of Pius XII's wartime record may be, the simple fact is that if Hitler had looked to him for moral guidance the Holocaust could never have happened. Indeed I would question in all seriousness whether any Pope - even the most morally degraded specimens that the late Middle Ages threw up - would have approved of it. Or, for that matter, any Archbishop of Canterbury, or any of the founding fathers of the Reformation, the admittedly appallingly anti-Semitic Martin Luther included. I'm open to contradiction from those better-informed than I am, but I offer that as a hypothesis.

The revelation at the heart of Christianity is that God is love, and I must confess to having no urge to discard it as Kamm would have me do. It is not a contention which can be verified by any process of reasoning, but neither does it exclude reason. It is both possible and necessary to use reason in working out its practical consequences, and the result can and should be a Church which concurs with Kamm that 'freedom of speech, tolerance and religious liberty are values to be prized and defended'. I believe the Christian gospel cannot be turned into a rationale for anti-Semitism without fundamentally distorting and abusing it. If I did not believe that I could not be a Christian. That such distortion and abuse is a historical reality is manifest - Christians are not exempt from human fallibility. It's harder to see the grounds for Kamm's confidence that his own preferred ideology is any less vulnerable to distortion and abuse.

The defence of liberal civilisation is the great cause that unites Oliver Kamm, me and, yes, the Pope. Auschwitz cannot fail to confront us with the fragility of that civilisation. Up to 1933 the German people made immense contributions to it, and, as Kamm acknowledges, they have done so again since 1945. And yet in the twelve intervening years its breakdown was total. Today liberal civilisation faces the threat of a 'traditional religious imagination' which has, paradoxically, absorbed the nihilism of the twentieth century's secular mass murderers. The broadest possible coalition of forces is needed to defend it - and that, if nothing else, makes it folly to write off religion per se as the root of all evil. Oliver, there are many, many religious people on your side, but if you keep telling us we really belong with the enemy, what do you expect to achieve other than persuading us to believe it?

In Albert Camus' great allegorical novel The Plague, the existentialist narrator Rieux and the priest Panneloux are irreconcilably at odds over the ultimate cause and significance of the plague which has struck the city of Oran. But they sink their metaphysical differences in the common fight to contain the plague and assist its victims. Faced again with the plagues of murderous intolerance and racism, we are surely called to the same kind of solidarity.

Light relief

With thanks to my church magazine...

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb.
'Excuse me, Your Holiness,' says the driver, ' Would you please take your seat so that we can leave?"
'Well, to tell you the truth,' says the Pope, 'they never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a Cardinal, and I'd really like to drive today.'
'I'm sorry, Your Holiness, I can't let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?' protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that day.
'Who's going to tell? Besides, there might be something extra in it for you,' says the Pope with a smile. Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph. (Remember, he's a German Pope.)
'Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!' pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
'Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license - and my job!' moans the driver. The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches, but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.
'I need to talk to the Chief,' he says to the dispatcher. The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five.
'So bust him,' says the Chief.
'I don't think we want to do that, he's really important,' said the cop.
The Chief exclaimed,' All the more reason!'
'No, I mean really important,' said the cop with a bit of persistence.
The Chief then asked, 'Who ya got there, the Mayor?'
Cop: 'Bigger.'
Chief:' Governor?'
Cop: 'Bigger.'
'Well,'said the Chief, 'Who is it?'
Cop: 'I think it's God!'
The Chief is even more puzzled and curious:'What makes you think it's God?'
Cop: 'He's got the Pope as a chauffeur.'

Anglican miscellany

More on the Anglican disinvestment resolution...

A letter to Rowan Williams from the International Council of Christians and Jews:-

HE The Most Rev. Rowan Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace
London
Great Britain
28 September 2004

Dear Archbishop Williams,

I write in the name of the Executive Board of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) to express deep concern about the report that the Anglican International Justice and Peace Committee will recommend disinvestment from Israel along the lines of the declaration recently adopted by the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

We at the ICCJ feel that such a step by the Anglican Communion would undercut its ability to engage constructively in the Middle East peace process. The ICCJ has strongly supported the Alexandria Declaration process in which your church has played such an important role.

But should the Anglican Communion support the disinvestment proposal it would be undercutting its role as a genuine peacemaker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Justice and Peace Commission's report strikes us as extremely one-sided. It discusses only injustices against Palestinians without in any way raising criticism of the actions of the Palestinian leadership which has supported terror attacks against Israel. And the Commission's report did not involve any substantive conversations with Israeli representatives, including several of the ICCJ's leadership such as Vice-President Rabbi Ehud Bandel and Honorary President Rabbi Prof. David Rosen who have worked tirelessly over the years on the peace process.

We at the ICCJ are not saying that there must be no criticism of concrete Israeli Policy. But if the Anglican Church hopes to serve as an authentic peacemaker that criticism has to be extended to the Palestinian side as well. The recent book by Middle East peace negotiator Ambassador Dennis Ross is one example of a balanced critique that also proposes constructive actions towards a peaceful settlement.

We at the ICCJ urge you to exercise leadership in this situation and prevent this extremely one-sided assessment from becoming policy for the Anglican Communion. Only in this way will the Anglican Church be able to maintain its important record on constructive Christian-Jewish relations as well as continue its leadership role in Middle East peacemaking.
Sincerely yours,

Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D.
President International Council of Christians and Jews


I find it incomprehensible that Rowan Williams did not take these views on board - or that, at best, he thought they could be accommodated by minor changes to the wording of the APJN resolution. Its symbolic force has not been changed.

In my source for the letter it is followed by a document from two ECUSA bigwigs in which, astoundingly, they refer to the APJN as 'representing the full 77 million member Anglican Communion'. Reverend Sirs, it most certainly does not represent me (nor, as she has asked me to add, my wife)! And if it has any mechanism of accountability to the Anglican Communion as a whole, neither the Anglican Communion website nor the ECUSA site appears to know anything about it.

Lastly, an item from the CaNN blog:

Friday, July 08, 2005

Compare and Contrast: Griswold & Benedict XVI

PB Griswold -My prayers and those of the Episcopal Church in the United States embrace all who have died and have been injured in yesterday's attacks in London. We pray as well for their families and friends. Through this tragedy we are put in mind once again of our common vulnerability.

In order to win the "war on terrorism" we must address its underlying causes and win peace in the Middle East. The three Abrahamic faiths are called to be the servants of God's peace which embraces all people and alone can overcome the fears and hatreds that divide us and prevent us from regarding one another as God's beloved children. May all who call God Father and the Compassionate One be drawn together in a renewed commitment to peacemaking for the sake of God's world.

Pope Benedict -"Deeply saddened by the news of the terrorist attacks in central London the Holy Father offers fervent prayers for the victims and for all those who mourn. While he deplores these barbaric acts against humanity he asks you to convey to the families of the injured his spiritual closeness at this time of grief. Upon the people of Great Britain he invokes the consolation that only God can give in such circumstances."

Note well the date: 8th July. Presiding Bishop Griswold is so sure he knows what the 'underlying causes' are, and so keen to tell us that we are All To Blame, that he could make this statement before anybody had any idea who the bombers were or where they come from. Is he still so certain?