The Question: Pope Benedict's recent baptism of a well-known Italian Muslim has prompted criticism in much of the Islamic world. Has Benedict done enough to build bridges to Islam?
The Vatican scored an undoubted public relations coup by converting a Muslim who was also a prominent newspaper editor in Italy. This comes as an after note to the quieter conversion of Tony Blair, who wanted to join his wife's faith. But once the reporters leave, the fact remains that Italy and England, like the rest of Western Europe, have very low Church attendance, generally between 10% and 18%. Church-going has been on the decline for decades and is basically limited, for most citizens, to weddings, funerals, and holidays.
The overall effect of this decline was not to make religion more tepid and secular society more confident in its lack of faith. Instead, a vacuum was created, leading to the most powerful insurgent movement of the late 20th century, right-wing fundamentalism. The U.S. (which has the highest church attendance among developed countries, with Japan and Scandinavia the lowest) and Western Europe face a crisis in tolerance, since the churches are now dominated by literalists who rebuke liberal Christianity and hold no toleration for non-Christian faiths. Not just Islam is scorned. John Paul II, himself a theological reactionary, went out of his way to dismiss any claim that Buddha was Christ-like, affirming that from a Catholic viewpoint, Buddhists are all pagans.
In other words, the calming ecumenical movement spearheaded by John XXIII has ebbed. Not among the casually religious, who form the bulk of the population and hold no brief against other casual religions, but among the fervent believers who filled the vacuum of faith over the past three decades. Militant Islam is simply a more violent example of the same trend -- although invisible to outsiders, the vast majority of Muslims don't agree with the malevolent factions that have co-opted the faith. Is the answer to this situation a return of the ecumenical spirit or, at the opposite end, the final triumph of secular rationalism? Neither, I suspect. The most tolerant Christians remain passive, like the most tolerant Muslims. Meanwhile, the thirst for some kind of belief must be quenched.
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