Catholic Leader Ponders Violence in Koran
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
May 8, 2006 10:01AM EST

By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
May 08, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Australia's top Catholic churchman is taking flak for a speech delivered in the United States three months ago. Muslims in his home country accuse him of being misinformed about a religion they insist is peaceful.

Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, told an audience of Catholic business leaders in Florida he believed it was vital to read the Koran, "because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives."

He said 9/11 had been his wake-up call to understand Islam better.

"In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence," he said. "There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."

"Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion, and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," Pell said. He added, however, that the human factor could also play a mitigating or exacerbating role, and he compared the situations in Indonesia and Pakistan.

In the first, he said, Islam was largely moderate and was sustained by large, moderate organizations that run schools, while in Pakistan religious belief was being radicalized because very different kinds of organizations "have stepped in to fill the void in education created by years of neglect by military rulers."

Muslims believe Allah revealed the Koran directly to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel (Jibril) over a 23-year period and that as such it is sacrosanct.

Pell pointed out that death threats and violence are frequently directed against Islamic scholars who question the Koran's divine origin, with hard-line leaders rejecting any call for critical consideration of the text.

He discussed the perceived differences between parts of the Koran written during Mohammed's years in Mecca - when his position was weak and he was still hoping to win converts, including Christians and Jews - and those written during his subsequent years in Medina, when "the spread of Islam through conquest and coercion began."

[The differences in the text from those two periods hold apparent contradictions between, for example, the concept of "jihad," meaning striving or waging war. Some verses counsel a patient response to mockery from unbelievers; others incite warfare against them. The question of whether the Medina chapters (suras) replaced and revoked the Mecca ones have long exercised scholars.]

"The predominant grammatical form in which jihad is used in the Koran carries the sense of fighting or waging war," Pell said.

It was legitimate to ask "our Islamic partners in dialogue" for their views on these matters.

"Do they believe that the peaceful suras of the Koran are abrogated by the verses of the sword?" he asked.

"Is the program of [Islamic] military expansion ... to be resumed when possible?"

"Do they believe that democratic majorities of Muslims in Europe would impose shari'a law? Can we discuss Islamic history and even the hermeneutical problems around the origins of the Koran without threats of violence?"

Pell's speech also touched on demographics, and the falling fertility rates in the West - below replacement level in many countries.

In interaction with Muslims, he said, it was important to grapple with "the struggle in the Islamic world between moderate forces and extremists, especially when we set this against the enormous demographic shifts likely to occur across the world, the relative changes in population-size of the West, the Islamic and Asian worlds and the growth of Islam in a childless Europe."

/s4 'Smokescreens'

Although the speech was delivered last February, the row has erupted now because a transcript was posted only several days ago on the Sydney Catholic diocese website.

Islamic representatives called the remarks disappointing and negative, warning they would merely reinforce differences among communities in Australia.

Keysar Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia said the comments were "ill-informed," and called the speech "an off-the-cuff dismissal of the teachings of one of the world's great religions."

Both Trad and Ali Roude of the Islamic Council of New South Wales -- the state of which Sydney is capital -- invoked the late Pope John Paul II, whom Roude said had laid foundations of peace, respect and understanding for interfaith dialogue.

Pell responded to the criticism with a brief statement, saying suggestions that he was misinformed on Islam were "smokescreens to distract, to divert attention rather than address basic issues which need to be discussed."

"Islamic terrorists are not a figment of anyone's imagination and the history of relations with Islam is full of conflict."

Pell said he continued to be completely committed to dialogue with Muslims and to supporting moderates.

"We need a lot of continuing dialogue, based on truth, history and the current situation."

Prime Minister John Howard came to Pell's defense, saying in a radio interview that he was certain the Catholic leader was "not trying to be unhelpful."

"I know for a fact he's been a strong proponent of good relations between Christianity and Islam."

'Climate hysteria'

Pell also upset environmentalists by taking issue with some of their assertions about climate change.

In a section of the speech dealing with what he called the "emptiness" of secularism, he said "some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature."

"In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods," he said.

"Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

"I think that Cardinal Pell's comments are extremely unhelpful and insulting to Catholics everywhere who are working very hard to address global warming," Senator Christine Milne of the Australian Greens party told Australian radio.

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