Should the next pope be a dhimmi? From AP, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:
“We have to learn to live with Islam,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, speaking to reporters Tuesday in Rome. “We have to learn how to dialogue with Islam.”
Sure. It’s all on us. If only we could learn to live with them, everything would be all right. I detect in this remark a trace of the widespread and largely unquestioned assumption that the Islamic world is only reacting violently to various fill-in-the-blank provocations from the West (Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Israel, Mossadegh, whatever) and that if we would just be nice to them, all our troubles would vanish. It’s interesting that this breathtakingly ethnocentric view is usually advanced by the most energetic proponents of multiculturalism.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George added: “The history between Catholicism and Islam is not a happy one. We want to live at peace in a global society, so a dialogue with Islam is particularly important.”…
During the late pope’s historic trip to Syria, he silently listened as Syria’s President Bashar Assad denounced Jews for trying to “kill the principles of all religions.” The Vatican refused to comment on the diatribe, apparently concerned any reaction would upset years of carefully crafted relations with the Muslim world.
Let’s hope that kind of shameful performance is not repeated, and that the next pope realizes that “years of carefully crafted relations” aren’t worth a thing if they involve concessions, circumspection, introspection, and reform only from one side, but not the other.