By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Rather than engage in peaceful dialogue about ways to stem the rising tide of anti-Christian violence in Egypt, that country’s highest Islamic authority, al-Azhar, announced yesterday that it is freezing all dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church over what it considers to be the Pope’s repeated “insults toward Islam.”
According to a statement issued by the al-Azhar’s Cairo-based Islamic Research Council, the group held an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss what it calls “the repeatedly insulting remarks issued by the Vatican Pope towards Islam and his statement that Muslims are discriminating against others who live with them in the Middle East. . . . The council decided to freeze dialogue between al-Azhar and the Vatican for an indefinite period.”
This action follows close on the heels of a similar move by the Egyptian government to summon its Vatican ambassador back to Cairo for consultation after the Pope issued a strong call for an end to anti-Christian violence in the Middle East during an address to the diplomatic corps earlier this month.
The Pope’s most recent statements condemn the rising tide of anti-Christian violence in the world, from Egypt and Iraq to Nigeria and even Western nations that discriminate against Christians in the form of “hate speech” laws and other non-violent means. He specifically called upon governments in the Middle East to adopt more effective measures to protect religious minorities, including Egypt where 23 people died in a New Year’s bombing outside a Coptic Christian church in the city of Alexandria.
Egypt’s actions have not caused Pope Benedict XVI to back down in his call for an end to violence against Christians in the world today. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi confirmed that the latest move by al-Azhar would not change the Vatican’s “policy of openness and desire for dialogue” with Islam.
As a result of the fallout, the annual inter-religious meeting between the Vatican and Muslim leaders which was scheduled for next month has been canceled.
“We are constantly being told that Islam is just like every other world religion—indeed, it is a religion of peace—and that while every religion has its share of crazies, most Muslims are no different than most Christians and Jews,” said Catholic League president Bill Donohue. “Yet daily we read about unprovoked violence, or threats of it, against Christians and Jews, and just as often we read how it is justified by leading Muslims clerics in the name of their religion.
“If a lone Christian zealot kills an abortionist, he gets zero support from Christian leaders. But when a Muslim woman decides to convert, there is no end to the number of Muslim leaders who say she should be put to death. If this is what the ‘religion of peace’ believes, God help those who live under its more radical rulers.”
Donohue points out that Muslim leaders are also using this opportunity to rehash the controversy surrounding the Pope’s 2006 speech at Regensburg University which was misconstrued as anti-Islam.
“At that time, the pope warned against the evils of faith without reason, and reason without faith. The pope was right then, and he is right now. Indeed, these Muslims give expression to the former evil.”
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