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Articles | Messages | Author | Homilies | Previews | Mailbox Newsletters | Home Pope Benedict's remark about Islam, torn out of context and perhaps better left unsaid, serves as an occasion to note that in the 14 centuries of struggle between Christianity and Islam, both sides have been guilty of fanaticism. Moreover, in both religious traditions there are propensities to spread the faith by force and to oppress, formally or informally, free expression of faith. Dialogue between the two heritages will proceed only if both sides are willing to face their propensity to force and fanaticism and set aside past memories. In its early years, Christianity had no political power. It spread by effective preaching and its good works. As sociologist Rodney Start has pointed out, it was the charitable activity of the early Christians that attracted people. Moreover, while Christianity became "official" after the 4th century, there was little attempt to force conversion in such areas as modern France, Bavaria, England, Switzerland or northern Italy. In Ireland, the country and its people became Christian so gradually the change was hardly noticeable. Religious violence came only with the English invasion. |
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Moreover, the Irish monasteries that spread over Europe were not designed to make
converts, yet became centers of education and Christianity. Some invading Gothics became
Christian when their chieftains became Christian. There seems to have been little violence
in such conversions and also not a great deal of change of convictions. In early medieval
Europe -- the so-called Dark Ages -- religion tended to be a mix of Christianity and
various pagan strains, in great part because the church lacked the resources to educate
its new converts. In the 9th and 10th centuries, however, came the strategy of baptizing the king, and with him his people slipped over into the custom of forcing baptisms on unwilling victims of military defeat. Charlemagne pushed the boundaries of his domain across the Rhine and began the difficult process of converting the tribes of northern Europe -- the Wends, the Danes, the Saxons, the Prussians, the Northern Slavs and the Lithuanians. These peoples were much more reluctant to give up their old faiths. They converted reluctantly, reverted to paganism quickly, and suffered massacres frequently. |
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Then, the Crusaders began their campaigns to reclaim
some lands that Islam had taken during their successful sweep from Arabia to the Indus
River and to the Pyrenees. While acting in the name of the cross, most were, alas, barely
converted barbarians who frequently engaged in pillage, rape and mass murder (as in
killing all the inhabitants of Jerusalem). Heretics were burned at the stake all over Europe, and the Inquisition was established to crush heresies. After the Catholics in Spain had broken the power of Islamic rulers, they decreed that all Muslims and Jews had to become Catholic or leave. The church baptized the "conversos" in large numbers, and the Spanish Inquisition struggled to eliminate those who secretly strove to maintain their old faith. Then, with the struggles of the Reformation, Catholics and Protestants continued the custom of forcing conversions. In England, more Catholics were burned at the stake than in any other European country. In the English Civil War between the Congregationalists and the Anglicans, 20 percent of the people of England died. During the penal times, English tried to eliminate Catholicism in Ireland and did not fail for lack of effort. In the Thirty Years War, the contending powers savaged the people of Europe so badly that some regions did not revive until the end of the 20th century. The colonial powers constrained their subject peoples to convert, though no longer by violence. Catholic theologians taught that in Catholic countries, followers of other religions could not have full civic rights because "error has no rights." Finally, at the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church decided that because of the dignity of human nature (Dignitatis Humanae), erring people did have the right to religious freedom. Despite the internecine killing within Islam (Sunni and Shia) and continued persecution of Christians in Islamic countries, there is much in the best of the Islamic tradition that would accept this premise. Perhaps that could be a focus for initial dialogue between the two faiths. . Read the Chicago SunTimes' Daily Southtown articles. |
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