While officially there is no election campaign in choosing a successor to Pope John Paul II, the half a dozen cardinals in line for the job are engaged in their version of electioneering. Some have taken to the media like duck to water, heightening their profile through TV and radio interviews. Others have relied on friends to keep their miters in the ring.
One issue that is dominating the debate about the succession is the attitude that the next pope, leader of the world’s estimated one billion Catholics, should adopt toward Islam.
For centuries the Catholic Church either tried to ignore Islam or clung to medieval prejudices borne out of misunderstanding or ignorance. By the middle of the last century, however, the Vatican, the state expression of the Catholic Church, felt obliged to develop a policy toward Islam if only to organize its relations with a growing number of Muslim countries. At the start of the last century there were just six more or less independent Muslim states. By the year 2000 that number had grown to 53.
The first pope to put relations with Islam on the agenda was Paul VI who initiated the first inter-faith dialogue. The idea was that Christianity and Islam must find a modus vivendi as two neighboring civilizations. Much of the dialogue, however, consisted of diplomatic exchanges and bland assertions of common values. The relationship remained distant and cold; it was as if the two sides were merely seizing each other up.
By the time of Paul VI’s passing the world had changed. The decolonization process had produced dozens of new Muslim states while a growing flow of Muslim immigrants into Europe altered the religious composition of the continent.
When John Paul II became pope, Islam was no longer a neighboring civilization of Europe but a significant and growing presence within the continent.
The history of the past three to four decades is one of intense competition between Islam and Christianity, especially the Catholic version, for converts. The last three decades of the 20th century witnessed major successes for Islam in winning converts, especially in black Africa where at least 12 nations that had been mainly Christian or animist were largely islamicized through conversions.
In 1980, John Paul II ordered a review of relations with Islam.
He faced two divergent views.
One belonged to cardinals who claimed that there was no need for a theological dialogue with Islam or, any other faiths for that matter, and that relations should remain confined to political and diplomatic domains.
That view was backed by the argument that Christianity, as the ultimate truth had nothing to learn from other religions. Another claim was that Islam, having concluded that the Shariah contained the ultimate answer to all issues, no longer had an evolving theology that could help Christian theology grow stronger by challenging it.
The second view belonged to those who wanted a polite, but ultimately inconsequential, dialogue as a matter of political expediency rather than theological interest.
The issue was further complicated because Islam does not have church-like structures and does not recognize a pope-like figure. Thus it was not clear who the pope should dialogue with. The easy way out for the Vatican, being a state and a member of the United Nations, was to pursue the dialogue through diplomatic relations with Muslim states.
In Islam, however, contrary to what some in the West imagine, the state is not the personification of religion. Even when the state bears the label “Islamic”, as is the case in the Islamic republics of Mauritania, Iran and Pakistan, for example, society as a whole does not seek its religious guidance from government officials. To complicate matters further, in some Muslim countries, the most active Islamic elements are in opposition to the state.
John Paul II insisted on developing a third position. This was based on the idea of a grand alliance between the Catholic Church and Islam to oppose both the Communist bloc led by the USSR and the growing secularization of life in the world. He regarded Islam and Catholicism as objective allies because while the former fought against the Red Army in Afghanistan, the latter took on the Soviet “evil empire” in Central and Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, the heartland of Catholicism, the pope saw Islam as an ally on such issues as homosexual “marriages”, abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, and the status of women.
John Paul II pursued his quest for alliance with Islam in 1986 by becoming the first pope to visit a Muslim country. During that visit to Morocco he had this to say: “We believe in the same God, the one and the only God, who created the world and brought its creatures to perfection.”
In 2001 John Paul II visited Damascus and became the first pope to pray in a mosque. He also issued a formal apology for what he termed the misdeeds of Christendom toward Islam, including the Crusades and colonialism.
That strategy was not an easy sell to many Catholics. Islam and Christianity are the only two major religions that wish to convert the whole of mankind. For them to set their 1400 year-old competition for converts aside in the name of fighting the common enemies of secularism and atheism is not an easy option.
Politically, John Paul II’s strategy has scored a number of victories. The Vatican has united with a number of Muslim states, notably Iran and the Sudan, to block the extension of the secular concept of human rights in several instances.
In the Beijing conference on women, for example, Vatican and the Islamic bloc managed to prevent measures that would have given women equal rights with men.
John Paul II’s charisma was such that few dared challenge his strategy. Now that he is no longer there, however, his strategy will be subjected to scrutiny within the Catholic Church.
One critic is Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, a leading candidate for papacy. Ratzinger believes that John Paul II’s strategy of alliance with Islam has put the Vatican not on the side of the Muslim peoples but on the side of despotic regimes that dominate the Muslim world. Ratzinger sees relations between Islam and Catholicism as one of competition over the truth.
Ratzinger suggests an alternative strategy under which the Catholic Church would focus on the consolidation of its position in its traditional strongholds in Europe and the American Continent. In that context Ratzinger has publicly opposed the admission of Turkey into the European Union.
Ratzinger regards a formal dialogue with Islam as a handicap for the Catholic Church because it would assume a measure of equality between the two faiths, signaling to people, especially in Europe, that they can shop around for religion. Ratzinger’s strategy enjoys much support in the College of Cardinals. But it also has critics.
Cardinal Angel Scola, the archbishop of Venice and another contender for John Paul II’s succession, regards Ratzinger’s strategy as “defensive” and based on the West’s traditional fears about Islam. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the archbishop of Westminster, goes further and described dialogue with Islam as “an urgent need”.
“We must find interlocutors in all Muslim countries,” he says. “Christianity and Islam have a shared responsibility in defending world peace.”
Both Scola and O’Connor believe that John Paul II’s public opposition to the war in Iraq helped prevent a “clash of civilizations”.
An even more ardent advocate of dialogue with Islam is Cardinal Francis Arinze, also a leading candidate for John Paul II’s succession. A Nigerian, Arinze has direct experience of Islam because more than half of his native country’s population is Muslim.
At a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, several years ago, Arinze told us that he believed Christians had much to learn from “the sincere ardor of Muslims” while Muslims could benefit from the West’s openness to new scientific and political ideas.
Like John Paul II, Arinze believes both Islam and Christianity need a united “anti-secularism” front to protect further erosion in their faith.
“Many Christians are uncomfortable with the idea of faith having its say on all issues,” he said. “In Islam, however, religion is still regarded as a legitimate participant in the public debate. We must work together to make this case in the global arena.”
In the next few days we shall know who has won the argument in the Vatican.
