Catholics Alarmed by Islam’s Rise
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press Writer
ASSISI, Italy (AP) - Pope John Paul II’s papacy has made a mission of closing the gap between Roman Catholics and the followers of other religions.
Now many in his church increasingly fear that one faith, Islam, is getting a little too close - in both Christianity’s birthplace of the Holy Land and in its traditional stronghold of Europe.
The competing views surfaced at two recent major Vatican gatherings, a European bishops synod and a council of 20 of the world’s religions.
Moderate Islamic leaders at the interfaith council insisted the fears were needless. Any efforts to push into traditionally Christian turfs were on the part of some hard-line Muslims and not by Islam as a whole, they said.
``A loss for Christianity is not necessarily a gain for Islam. Christianity’s decline could harm the ideal of religion,‘’ said Kamel Al-Sharif, a council participant from Jordan.
``For the good of Islam, we want Christianity to be strong, but without fanaticism and bigotry,‘’ he said.
At October’s synod, alarms came more than once from clerics who see Islam making inroads into Europe as increasing numbers of immigrants bring their traditional faiths with them.
In the most extreme, Archbishop Giuseppe Germano Bernardini, an Italian based in Turkey, told colleagues he suspected a concerted program, backed by petrodollars from the Persian Gulf states, to build mosques and cultural centers across Europe.
Bernardini warned of a campaign of ``reconquest.‘’
Voicing almost equal alarm, French participant Alain Besancon told bishops that the number of Muslims in his country - 4 million to 5 million - was now equal to the number of practicing Catholics.
Christians in increasingly Islamic suburbs of Paris feel menaced,'' Besancon said. He warned of an unsuitable’’ reaction.
Catholic leaders say those and other speakers on Islam were speaking for themselves, not for the synod.
The church doesn't fear Islam, and I don't fear Muslims,'' Archbishop Giovanni Martinelli told reporters during the interfaith council. What I fear are Christians who live in an un-Christian way’’ in Muslim countries.
But the Vatican itself is protesting plans to build a mosque next to a basilica at the site in Nazareth where Christians believe Mary was told of the coming birth of Christ.
Vatican officials - directing their protests at Israel, which agreed to the mosque - feel strongly enough about the dispute to warn that John Paul’s proposed trip to Israel next year could be threatened by the dispute.
Vatican officials also have indicated resentment at what they see as unreciprocated concessions to Islamic countries.
When Muslims opened Europe’s largest mosque in Rome in 1995, the pope emphasized that in much of the Islamic world religious freedoms were denied non-Muslims.
Vatican Radio noted then that Saudi Arabia - which paid for most of the mosque - doesn’t allow open worship by Christians.
Many Islamic leaders say the Koran itself forbids it and call it a non-negotiable point.
For all the underlying tensions, the interfaith council ended with a joint appeal for respectful cooperation among religions - and a forceful denunciation of extremism and fanaticism.
In a session of the council that was held at the basilica that holds the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, the message was mutual respect rather than rivalry.
In the 12th century, St. Francis himself set out with the crusaders for the Holy Land with the idea of either converting the sultan of Egypt or dying a martyr. He did neither, but came back preaching an even stronger message of tolerance, Al-Sharif and other speakers noted.
At the synod, the bishops’ closing message acknowledged fears that Catholicism was losing immediacy and importance to the lives of people in Western Europe.
But there was no mention of Islam - and the church placed responsibility on itself. The church has to do more to win and keep hearts in the third millennium, bishops said, urging Catholics on to a ``new evangelism’’ in the Old World.