Pope: Violence in name of Christian faith a `great shame’
St. Francis and the sultan of Egypt. Sculpture by Arnaldo Zocchi (1909), in downtown Cairo.
At a gathering of religious leaders in Assisi today, Pope Benedict XVI confronted the question of whether religion is cause for violence or a force for peace. In doing so, he looked back on the history of his own church:
As a Christian I want to say at this point: yes, it is true, in the course of history, force has also been used in the name of the Christian faith. We acknowledge it with great shame. But it is utterly clear that this was an abuse of the Christian faith, one that evidently contradicts its true nature.
This blanket disavowal of all violence perpetrated in the name of the Christian faith seems to me very significant, given the efforts among conservative Catholic apologists to justify the Crusades. (Some might think that Pope John Paul II resolved the issue, but it’s not clear that he apologized for the Crusades.)
It’s appropriate that the pope’s remarks were made in the home town of St. Francis, who quietly opposed the Crusade (as Benedict has written) and befriended the enemy’s commander, Egypt’s Sultan Malik al-Kamil, in the midst of the Fifth Crusade.
Benedict offered a carefully reasoned argument that religiously motivated terrorism plays into the hands of enemies of religion:
The post-Enlightenment critique of religion has repeatedly maintained that religion is a cause of violence and in this way it has fuelled hostility towards religions. The fact that, in the case we are considering here, religion really does motivate violence should be profoundly disturbing to us as religious persons. In a way that is more subtle but no less cruel, we also see religion as the cause of violence when force is used by the defenders of one religion against others. The religious delegates who were assembled in Assisi in 1986 wanted to say, and we now repeat it emphatically and firmly: this is not the true nature of religion. It is the antithesis of religion and contributes to its destruction.
One hopes that this finds a broad and receptive audience.
It’s a somewhat subtle distinction, but “acknowledging with shame” is not precisely the same as an apology – and istm the former is the more appropriate stance. None of us are responsible for the misdeeds of our ancestors, so it is not for us to apologize. It is for us to have the humility to acknowledge their mistakes, and to work to rectify whatever injuries they caused that are hurting or oppressing people today.
I don’t have a strong feeling about the Crusades one way or another, because I don’t see that there are many (or any) important effects of the Crusades that actually have an impact on people today. Certainly, whatever they accomplished doesn’t compare to the permanent effect that Islamic conquerors have had on centuries-old Christian cultures and faith in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe. The Crusades are frequently used as a weapon by those hostile to Christianity to cudgel it, and we needn’t feel obligated to agree with them.
John Paul II, in Tertio millennio adveniente: “Another painful chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth” (n. 35).
Condemning your ancestors for doing something you don’t think you’d have done in their place is an exercise in writing fairy tales. It’s also a little like a reformed drunk condemning drunkards for not having reformed.
There are several dimensions to the dishonesty here. This is pure politics. Well, no, politics is never pure. It’s pandering, among other things.
I’m really impressed by Benedict’s willingness here to talk about freedom as a value. No, not the “directionless freedom” which he faults, but freedom in the political sense of self-determination. He all but says that these days freedom as a necessary condition of peace. Vatican people used not to talk like this. Cardinal Ottaviani must be whirling in his grave. Indeed, it looks like Benedict is giving Vatican II his unequivocal seal of approval.
Granted the Pope was limited by sensitivity to his diverse audience and time available, it is not at all clear what he was acknowledging with shame, and I read no indications of a “… blanket disavowal of all violence perpetrated in the name of the Christian faith”
The Crusades you mention occurred over only a few centuries in a millennium in which Christianity, led by popes, was a driving factor in “evangelization by arms” in Europe and South America. In the 8th century, Charlemagne had offered the Saxons a choice of Baptism or death. In 1494, Pope Alexander VI divided the Western world in half, bestowing one part on Spain and the other on Portugal for subjugation and conversion of non-Christians. Brazilians reminded Benedict of this after he spoke of their ancestors’ “silent longing” for Christianity when European priests and armies arrived. They remembered in 2007 and he failed to mention the millions of natives killed, enslaved, and deprived of their own religion in the process.
Passing off as “not the true nature of religion” what history shows us about centuries of force repeatedly used in the name of the Christian faith on multiple continents leads to the question of what is the nature of religion as reflected in practice, “true” or not.
Forget about ansestors and apologizing for them. We have to apologize for the beliefs now of the billion Catholics and their leadership who resist the peace Church. We need a return to the pre-Constantine PEACE church that Christ founded. To those who claim a peace Church is not practical need to make a case and show that a ‘practical’ Christianity adheres to the Gospel. It’s not up to the non-violent/ peace church people to have to prove anything.
I agree with Jack that the crusades do matter. They reflect what church leaders and theologians (like Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux) believed about Christianity – those are many of the same guys we now venerate and whose theories we still sometimes hold (like “just war”). Not all of the crusades were fought to save the Holy Land – there were also crusades against the Byzantines, the Wends, the Russians, the Cathars, etc. The idea, also, that the combo of violence and Chritianity was just a medieval thing is not really so – as late as WWII there the awful mix of Nazism plus Catholicism in Croatia – the Ustaše.
“blanket disavowal of all violence perpetrated in the name of the Christian faith” … the pope says, without qualification, that the use of force in the name of Christian faith was an abuse of the Christian faith. It’s clear.
The comment on “dishonesty” isn’t worthy of a reply.
@Jim Pauwels (10/27, 7:26 pm) Thanks for your distinction between apology and acknowledgment with shame; I found it helpful.
As for the Crusades, I agree that some critics use them as a cudgel with which to beat the Church. However, I don’t think we Catholics should allow their behavior to push us into a stance of minimizing the Crusades and their importance.
First, the Crusades were a central organizing principle for the Roman Catholic Church for centuries—as Jack Barry (10/27, 10:29 pm) and Crystal Watson pointed out above (10/27, 11:30 pm).
Second, the Crusade as metaphor has remained a vital part of Christian and European culture to this day. I am at this moment (as, no doubt, some of you are) within a few minutes drive of Catholic high schools whose athletes are “Knights” and “Crusaders”. More seriously, some of the initial language used by President Bush and his administration at the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars was “crusader” language. (To his credit, Pres. Bush minimized the use of crusader imagery shortly thereafter.)
Third, from the little reading I’ve done about Islamic history, it seems many scholars conclude that the Islamic use of “jihad” in the sense of armed, violent warfare against nonbelievers (as opposed to “jihad” in the sense of spiritual struggle) is largely a consequence of, and reaction to, the Crusades.
Fourth, the Crusades—in their aspect of Europeans traveling great distances to conquer and subjugate other peoples—are, in many ways, the template for European behavior from the 15th to the 20th century in their conquering of much of the world. It is only within the lifetime of many of us that great swaths of humanity in Africa, Asia and the Americas have regained their independence from European rule.
All of which only increases my gratitude for Pope Benedict’s statement.
Violence is evident in Mohammed himself. No way it is as a result of European invasion. Secondly, The Muslims more than held their own against European invasions. Beating the hell out of them many times. The mystery is how they allowed European domination in the19th and 20th century. Some historians say that the Muslims just took a century off, militarily.
No question what Benedict is saying now is good and necessary. But given Benedict’s history even non cynics can wonder about his motivation. This is a different twist from his words about Islam violence which was a diplomatic disaster. What he said was true. But his intent and context were suspect. So now in a clear allusion to Islam he is saying that the Christian gospel does not approve violence while the Muslim does.
The problem with the Crusades today is that EWTN and others defend them. But, clearly, the twentieth century with its World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, and Iraq (21st) are worse than the Crusades. Too many Church leaders applauded the violence, like Cardinal Spellman, and few opposed while those who objected were and still are called extremists.
So Benedict’s words are a step in the right direction. But he has some work to do to establish his credibility.
Perhaps it is coincidence that we write on October 28, the date in 312 on which Constantine allegedly adopted his motto often immortalized as “In this sign thou shalt conquer”. He won the battle he faced, and his opponent drowned in the Tiber.
Benedict XVI’s statement voicing his shame and recognizing the abuse of the faith is commendable. It is noteworthy because of the individual who spoke it. If one notices the near-term history of recent decades which he emphasized in setting the stage for his talk, it is perfectly consistent with his statement to be thinking of the Catholic-Protestant conflict ongoing in 21st-century Londonderry. There is no indication he has in mind the popes, theologians, princes, etc. who were responsible for force in the name of Christianity over ages.
A complication arises in that, as far as can be determined, most of those in the past were acting sincerely out of long-term, honest, and explicit convictions, with eternal salvation at stake, that they were defending the Christian faith. The nature of the true faith was clear to them, less a few, ineffective dissenters. Some were granted plenary indulgences for their efforts. Bulls and encyclicals record papal roles and interventions to protect the faith and attempt to impose it on non-believers wherever possible. I agree with Bill M.’s conclusion (10/28 10:32am) – “Benedict’s words are a step in the right direction. But he has some work to do to establish his credibility.”
Here is the speech at the meeting of Julia Kristeva, one of the invited agnostics who participated.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Julia-Kristeva:-The-humanism-of-the-Enlightenment-must-dialogue-with-Christian-humanism-23031.html
Interesting how the notion of value persists in people who have little or no reasons to hold them. I particularly like her insight that motherhood has found no place in the values of secularism, that it has yet to be incorporated into that worldview. That might at least partly explain the easy acceptance of abortion once Roe was handed down.
Here are some texts from some of the other participants.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-world's-religions-commitment-to-peace-23027.html
I note that the Buddhist is the only poet among them. Hmm.
However, Benedict came to this landing it is the right one. The dialogue between all people of good will should take place. Sounds simple but it is revolutionary. Good people are no longer killed or imprisoned because they do not believe. Is there any other way to act. The next thing we will learn is that there really cannot be any good people unless God is there. Because wherever good is God has to be there. As Jesus told us: “Only God is good.”
Benedict saying that violence must not be used in the service of religion is like the president of Chad saying that nuclear weapons must not be used in warfare. He’s clearly not applying his stricture to his church, since his church hadn’t used violence as a policy tool in a very long time. But if he said that Islamic religious leaders should unequivocally disavow violence used in the name of Islam, he’d be roundly criticized for taking sides against Islam. Politics.
“Violence in name of Christian faith a `great shame’”
Talk about stating the obvious! And for this we need a magisterium?
This is not directly on-topic, but it’s related. It’s a review in the London Review of Books of the new book “Civilization: The West and the Rest” by neo-imperialist historian Niall Ferguson. It questions what happened — and didn’t happen — between the capitalist imperialists and the “hopeless” peoples of the East and South. Food for thought == how benign has the secular/religious West actually been it its outreaches to other nations, i.e., “the Rest”?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man
Started to read it, Ann, and gave up at paragraph six. Man with an axe to grind.
Here’s a less unfriendly review:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204777904576651082593576882.html?KEYWORDS=niall+ferguson
David S. –
ISTM both Ferguson and the reviewer are thoroughly slanted, which makes it interesting. The Journal review, though generally favorable, is somewhat critical. However, it ends with more compliments to Western wonderfulness, compliments which are not entirely justified if Ferguson is right.
The first review notes one extremely interesting thing about Ferguson: around 2004 he loudly predicted that the West was heading straight for the economic trainwreck which began in 2007-8. I can’t help but wonder what in his world-view led him to this prediction or at least allowed him to see the economic facts objectively when none of his conservative economists colleagues seem to have noticed that a hurricane was brewing.
How does his world-view differ from the typical (and blind) neo-conservative economist’s world-view? What made him reach that conclusion when all your wise men missed it? Put another way, what insights were your wise men lacking?
One of the things I liked about Benedict’s speech to the conference was that he was open to self-criticism, indeed, said we must all purify our religions. I think that includes our social ethics.
Slight detour that will probably scandalize the liturgically pure —
A headline in today’s Times-Picayune says “Asian Mass delights students at St. Andrew the Apostle in Algiers”.
http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2011/10/asian_mass_delights_students_a.html
I love the picture of the little children looking up at the monster. Take a look at the other snaps beneath it. Love the Rosary tree. :-)
OK — is this really what the Pope is encouraging?
I say Yay for Archbishop Aymond for encouraging such inter-ethnic celebrations.
” But if he said that Islamic religious leaders should unequivocally disavow violence used in the name of Islam, he’d be roundly criticized for taking sides against Islam.”
David S,
He would get no opposition. What got Benedict in trouble was when he said the very nature of Islam teaches violence. While I agree that Mohammed allowed violence there is wiggle room there for Muslims to condemn violence. So that is different. “S/he knows well who distinguishes well.”
Ann, is his first name really Beau?
David,
I don’t know Fr. Charbonnet. But General Beauregard was a Creole from New Orleans, so with a Creole name like Charbonnet, I assume Father and the general are related. Our old neighbor Beauregard Buisson was named after the general, his great-grandfather. The Creoles are pretty proud of him.
Yes, but Beauregard and Beau are very different :0) I’ll assume his real name is the longer one – that had parents didn’t saddle him with Beau.
As for ideologies, they’re all correct, of course – like all beliefs. You want to be very chary, though, of voting true believers into public office. But my sense is that it’s the academics who are most strongly inclined to belief systems. Pragmatic people like those engaged thoroughly in the world of commerce normally have neither the inclination nor the luxury of living in fantasy worlds.
If at least most Catholics became conscientious objectors on those grounds, t’would help. All those who call themselves Christians I imagine is too much to hope for. Of course once upon a time you could be sainted for killing any number of heath dwellers as you converted them! Anyhow, the idea of Jesus as a human possibility is I imagine quite a godly one, and therefore so easy to pervert. http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref=name
Michael, apparently a good argument can be made that Christianity is pacifist at core. I suppose one could also argue the futility of that – that if Christians had always practiced pacifism, the church would likely have died out many centuries ago.
While we discussing the Crusades, could we also look at the Inquisition, the genocide of the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, slavery, subgation of women, and the death penalty – only recently condemned by the Vatican. And should I also mention two great wars – both Allies and Axis Christian nations? The Church did practice pacificism but betrayed itself by misusing the so-called Just War Principles.