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The ambiguity of Islam

By James V. Schall

“When some fanatics kill children, women, and men in the name of pure and authentic Islam, or in the name of the Qur’an or of the Muslim tradition, nobody can tell them: ‘You are not true and authentic Muslims.’ All they can say is: ‘Your reading of Islam is not ours.’ And this is the ambiguity of Islam, from its beginning to our present day: violence is a part of it, although it is also possible to choose tolerance; tolerance is a part of it, but it is also possible to choose violence.”

—Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., 111 Questions on Islam

“Real problems were raised by the Christian encounter with Islam as a socio-political system, which followed the politicization of religion. Since then there has been a tendency in the Muslim tradition of imposing its domination. This tendency derives from the Muslim conviction that they have a monopoly on the truth and that the Qur’an is the perfect and ultimate revelation.”

—Samir, 111 Questions on Islam

Many books on the meaning and apparently sudden rise of Islam have been published since September 11, 2001. For overall insight, it is still difficult to surpass Belloc’s chapter on “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed” in his 1938 book Great Heresies. But books such as Laurent Murawiec’s The Mind of Jihad, Reza Aslan’s No god but God, Roger Scruton’s The West and the Rest, Tawfik Hamid’s Inside Jihad, Matthias Küntzel’s Jihad and Jew-Hatred, and Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia are just a few.

Several books on this pressing topic are especially of interest to Catholics: Jacques Jomier’s The Bible and the Qur’an, Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer’s Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics: 100 Questions and Answers, Thomas Madden’s New Concise History of the Crusades, and, most recently, Samir Khalil Samir, S.J.’s 111 Questions on Islam, a book originally written in Italian. My own Regensburg Lecture is also pertinent here.

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Can clergy sex offenders be helped?

What modern treatment programs for sexual abuse leave out is faith in Jesus Christ and the notion of repentance for one’s sins.

By Regis Scanlon

What should the Church do with priests and religious who were guilty of clergy sexual abuse in the United States? Psychologist Rev. Stephen J. Rossetti, the director of the best known of the clinics involved in the treatment of abusive Catholic clergy, has stated about the Church’s response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal: “The Church has crafted an institutional response that has tended to be legal and psychological. What has been sorely lacking is the pastoral dimension.” More specifically, I would say that greater attention needs to be paid to the task of reparation for their sins with a view toward spiritual rehabilitation of these fallen clergy and religious. These men are consecrated to the Lord and the Scriptures tell us that consecration matters to God. When David was tempted to kill King Saul in self-defense, David said: “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, as to lay a hand on him, for he is the Lord’s anointed” (1 Sam. 24:7). If this is the case with the Old Testament royal anointing, how much more important are those anointed to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The aim of this article, therefore, is to recommend a spiritual treatment for these fallen priests and religious which will respect their dignity and respond to the need for reparation for harm done to the entire Church. The intent here is to propose a place where fallen priests and religious will not only be contained and controlled but will actually receive treatment that will lead to their recovery both spiritually and emotionally.

But first we must pin-point the problem. The results of the United States Catholic Bishops’ 2004 study on clergy sexual abuse revealed that, while some clergy were involved in pedophilia or abusing pre-pubescent children, most clergy were guilty of “pederasty” which is homosexuals preying on young males or teenagers. So, we are primarily—but not exclusively—trying to spiritually rehabilitate men who have fallen into a pattern of homosexual behavior. My recommended program will take this into account. But before examining various types of programs for treatment, let us look at the root cause of all sexual abuse, the sin of lust.

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Ephesians 5: Bridegroom and Bride

By submitting herself to her husband, the wife is allowing her man to sacrifice himself for her.

By Rex H. Pilger

It is Mass on the Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time, in late summer only a few years ago. Fortunately the air conditioning seems to be holding up, for this year at least. The celebrant offers the Opening Prayer, asking the Father for help, to seek the values that will bring lasting joy in a changing world. Seated beside the celebrant, the deacon at this Mass, I join the assembly in preparing to listen to the Word of God. The Scripture readings are from Year B, and we hear the stirring invitation of Joshua: “Decide today whom you will serve…As for me any my household, we will see the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The cantor leads us to respond: “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”

But next comes the one passage that no one really seems to listen to; out of all of Scripture proclaimed over the complete three-year cycle, this is one passage that is consistently ignored, rejected or misinterpreted—I call it the “nudging” Scripture. After twenty years of ordained ministry, sitting in the sanctuary behind the ambo, every third year I can watch for the elbows. The reader begins: “A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians. Brothers and sisters, be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Show humility and defer to others, as we often hear in other readings, but are we ready for the next sentence? “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.”

Suddenly, the many male faces are alert; the wives of the quickest feel an elbow against their arms. And the faces of some women fall, eyes cast down; it is as if their minds can read: “Oh, no. Not again. Not this Sunday.”

Pope John Paul II on conscience

Conscience itself does not create norms but discovers them in the objective order of morality.

By Richard A. Spinello

When Cardinal Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in 1978, he was well prepared to teach the Catholic faithful about ethics. As a young man Karol Wojtyla thought about a career in acting, but he felt a call to the priesthood and soon found himself immersed in the study of philosophy and theology. He was particularly attracted to the study of moral philosophy. After his ordination Father Wojtyla pursued doctoral studies, writing his dissertation on one of the foremost moral philosophers of the twentieth century, Max Scheler. He then joined the faculty at the Catholic University of Lublin in 1954. He was appointed to the prestigious Chair of Ethics at that University in 1956. During these years, Wojtyla offered popular seminars and he wrote extensively about ethical issues, often focusing on the intimate connection between ethics and anthropology.

One of the moral themes that pre-occupied Wojtyla in these pre-papal writings was conscience. It is no surprise, therefore, that he would return to this theme many times in his magisterial teachings. The Pope recognized the need for a proper understanding of conscience, and he was concerned with those who sought to undermine the orthodox doctrine of conscience with more subjectivist notions. Not only has this doctrine been distorted by some revisionist theologians, who diminish the moral law’s decisive role in human development, it has also been corrupted in modern culture. In recent centuries the notion of authenticity has displaced the traditional conception of conscience. The person is supposedly guided by an “inner voice” to make authentic moral choices that are consistent with his or her particular value system. Conscience is also equated with a Freudian superego, which makes us aware of superficial and conventional social standards. The pre-cursor of this idea was Nietzsche, who reduced conscience to the sublimation of instinct.

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Heaven is not an abstraction

The realism or concreteness of Catholicism is startling to minds conditioned only by abstractions or by materialism alone.

By James V. Schall

“Today’s feast (Assumption) impels us to lift our gaze to Heaven; not the heaven consisting of abstract ideas or even an imaginary heaven created by art, but the Heaven of true reality which is God himself.”
—Benedict XVI, Homily, Feast of the Assumption, 2008.

“The teachers are terrified of the thought that they might really have something divine to teach. They are terrified of dogma, or Tradition, or of Divine Revelation, of Divine Law, of authority, of ‘Thus says the Lord.’”
—Peter Kreeft, Jesus Shock.

“Let there be one common festival for saints in heaven and for men on earth. Let everything, mundane things and those above, join in festive celebration. Today this created world is raised to the dignity of a holy place for him who made all things. The creature is newly prepared to be a divine dwelling place for the Creator.”
—St Andrew of Crete, Discourse, Feast of the Nativity of Mary.

Though full of ideas, the characteristic of Catholicism is its stubborn concreteness. It talks about a “real presence,” as opposed to an unreal or merely symbolic one. Its Trinitarian God is different from the classical concept of a First Mover or the Good. The Trinity means personal relations within the Godhead itself and, from there, not to “humanity” in general, but to each existing human being. “Humanity” is a logical abstraction, in fact, an abstraction from an abstraction. Christ did not become man to save a logical abstraction, but to save Suzie, John and Henry, actual human beings with names. Indeed, properly speaking, the Word was made “flesh,” not “man,” just to be sure we have the idea straight and what it refers to. But it is an idea that we must carefully spell out and define so that we know exactly what is at stake and what is meant.

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