George Weigel visits Kenrick

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary had the privilege of hosting George Weigel, author of Pope John Paul II's biography Witness to Hope, as a guest lecturer this evening. He held a question and answer forum at 3:00 PM this afternoon just for the seminarians and the Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick Lecture was held at 7:30 PM after a fabalous 5 course meal.

The reason I mention this lecture is to bring up a portion of his discussion that will be of interest to my readers. Although his topic for the lecture was Benedict XVI and his Papacy, he spent some time discussing the effect Islam will have on Christianity in the next few decades. He approached this from a number of angles. In our forum, he was asked whether he thought the one disappointment of JPII, the failure to re-unify the East and West, was something Benedict XVI would seek to fulfill. In giving his answer, he felt that one of the most influential factors in possible re-unification was the fact that Islam is undiscriminatingly hostile to both the Orthodox and Latin Church, but especially the Orthodox as they have more of a presence in the Muslim countries. It was his contention that if that pressure increased and if violent attacks against the Orthodox arose, the East would likely pursue re-unification partially to present a much stronger and more dominant front in protecting and defending the faith.

In the lecture itself, he pointed out that the dialogue between the Vatican and Islam was at best civil, but that any real progress is stalled because of Muslim's absolute intolerance of any faith that is not Islam. In most Muslim countries converting from Islam to any other faith is a capital crime for which one can be executed. The current case in Afghanistan in which a Muslim man converted to Christianity and is now on trial facing execution is a prime example of this (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188936,00.html). A second issue is the tendacy toward violence. Weigel said that while the Qu'ran promotes peace, Muslims and especially the more radical sects have either chosen to ignore this concept or abandoned this concept altogether in favor of terrorism and widespread violence. Obstacles such as these, Weigel said, really prevent constructive and productive dialogue because it requires reform of the current positions on the part of Muslims. Ultimately, he felt that the hostility against Christians by Muslims will only increase before it has any chance of waning.

While I don't know how exactly this plays into our recent conversations on Muslim-Catholic relations, it does give me pause in some of the assertations that Muslims are generally peaceful. Although I argued that Islam as a religion is peaceful, I failed to point out that just because the faith itself is peaceful it doesn't necessarily follow that its people, in this case Muslims, will actually practice this tenet of the faith. It seems that George Weigel hold this belief as well and feels that until Muslims reform their ways to return to the peace implied in the Qu'ran, the tension between Islam and Christianity will not disappear.

I thought his insights were worthy of mentioning here, especially because they seem to shed some new light and understanding on our topic. I also figure that since I am just a humble seminarian and he is one of the leading authors and theologians of the Catholic faith and indeed of the world, his views might have a little more weight. I would welcome any comments or insights to what he said. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 23:14 | link | comments |
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