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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (153959)	1/7/2006 1:54:16 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793955

Well! What do you know, the Pope has exactly the same understanding of Chistian doctrine and Islam and it's logical implied truths as I do. JF: Well, the thesis that was proposed by this scholar was that Islam can enter into the modern world if the Koran is reinterpreted by taking the specific legislation, and going back to the principles, and then adapting it to our times, especially with the dignity that we ascribe to women, which has come through Christianity, of course. And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that, because he said in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world, and therefore by establishing a Church in which he gives authority to His followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations. I was...I mean, Hugh, I wish I could say it as clearly and as beautifully as he did, but that's why he's Pope and I'm not, okay? That's one of the reasons. One of others, but his seeing that distinction when the Koran, which is seen as something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied, even, and the Bible, which is a word of God that comes through a human community, it was stunning.

To: LindyBill who wrote (153959)	1/7/2006 4:22:43 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793955

I think the issues raised in that article and in the Steyn editorial are very important. But one thing that I also think is that there is something odd about France that is hard to explain. We joke about them being "surrender monkeys" but the truth is that they do surrender rather than fight. They surrendered in 1870, they surrendered in WWII, and they didn't fight very hard in WWI. The Germanic countries, the Scandinavian countries, and the observant Catholic countries, I am not that worried about. They will have social unrest but I don't think they will surrender to Islam. The reason the Ottoman Turks were able to accomplish as much as they did is because they were militarily strong in a way that I can't foresee Islamic countries ever being again -- but we do need to keep them from getting nuclear weapons. That's the nightmare scenario, as you know. I do think it's a tiny bit ironic to be talking about how our Catholic Hispanic immigrants will help save us, in one breath, when it appears to me that the anti-immigration backlash wants to stop this because the people who are anti-immigration are afraid of being overwhelmed by Latinos, in the other breath. I don't know where Hewitt comes down on this issue. I do know that the American Catholic Church is very pro-immigration, especially Latino Catholics. At any rate, no matter where you come down on the issue, there's no escaping the fact that draconian measures being taken against Hispanic immigrants will act as a counterweight to the hope that higher Hispanic fertility rates will help save America from going the way that Europe is going. But we continue to be the Great Melting Pot. Everywhere I go I see more immigrants. Yesterday at Microcenter in the post-Christmas jam countless non-Anglo faces, including a black man in a loose white garment that came down to his ankles, and a monk in saffron robes and sandals (in January!).