On his return from a recent trip to Morocco, Pope Francis was well pleased with his encounter with his Muslim “brothers and sisters.” He seemed especially pleased with the appeal he and King Mohammed VI issued together, stating to reporters that “For example, the joint appeal for Jerusalem was a step forward made not by an authority of Morocco and an authority of the Vatican, but by believing brothers who suffer seeing this City of hope: that is not yet as universal as we all desire it to be: Jews, Muslims and Christians. We all want this. And this is why we have signed this desire: it is a desire, a call to religious fraternity that is symbolized in this city that is all ours. We are all citizens of Jerusalem, all believers.”
Before returning to that historically questionable statement about Jerusalem, let’s go back a bit and recall other remarks by Pope Francis. Pope Francis has said many false things about Islam. He has said that “there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism” and that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.” He has, in turn, been praised by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, who thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”
Pope Francis has even obliquely justified the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad, saying that “it is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends if [an aide] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal. You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others. These people provoke and then (something can happen).” So the murder of a dozen helpless cartoonists is compared to a punch. There is something out of whack in this Pope’s moral calculus.
When asked by a journalist about whether the 85-year-old priest who was decapitated while saying Mass was “killed in the name of Islam,” Francis replied:
“I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy… this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence . . . and no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything.”
The Pope thinks that because some Catholics commit murder for purely personal reasons, this constitutes “Catholic violence.” It does not. It is violence by Catholics, not committed in the name of, and not in any way because of, their Catholic faith. “Islamic violence” against Infidels, on the other hand, is inculcated in the texts — Qur’an and Hadith — of Islam.
The Pope has said that “in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We [Catholics] have them.” These fundamentalists rely on their scriptures. But mainstream Muslims are all “fundamentalists” and what their Scriptures, the Qur’an and Hadith, tell them is quite different from what Christian “fundamentalists” find in their Bible. Christians find messages about mercy, charity, love, forgiveness. If a few Christians are violent, it is despite what the Bible tells them. Muslim “fundamentalists” — that is, mainstream Muslims — are violent not in spite of, but because of what they find in the Qur’an. For there they find more than 100 verses commanding Believers to engage in violent Jihad against non-Muslims, to “fight” and to “kill” them, to “smite at their necks,” to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Unbelievers. Given the Pope’s claim that “authentic Islam” has nothing to do with violence, one would like to know if the Pope has read the Qur’an. Is it possible he has not done so, despite being so willing to make authoritative pronouncements about Islam? Or has he read the Qur’an, and not understood, or chosen to ignore, what he read? Or is he, as many have begun to suspect, when it comes to anything having to do with Islam, hopelessly idiotic?
The Pope has met the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed al-Tayeb, twice — in Rome and in the United Arab Emirates, calling him “a friend and dear brother.” He has publicly thanked the sheik for having “the courage and desire to affirm that faith in God unites and does not divide, draws together even in differences (and) moves away from hostility and aversion.” Does the Pope know how many terrorists have studied at Al-Azhar and were deeply affected by the Islamic education they received there while Al-Tayeb, his “friend and dear brother,” was the theological school’s president? Did anyone at the Vatican think to tell the Pope about Al-Tayeb’s views on Jews, quite full of “hostility and aversion,” such as in this revealing interview on Egyptian television in 2013?
Interviewer: They [the Jews] consider everybody else to be inferior to them…
Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Extremely inferior. They even have very peculiar laws. For instance, they are allowed to practice usury with non-Jews. Some things are not allowed among Jews, but are allowed between Jews and non-Jews. They practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Torah – with regard to killing, enslavement, and so on [of non-Jews].
Therefore, they have generated a problem not only in their relations with the Muslims, but in their relations with all other people as well, and history has been clear on this.
Interviewer: There is even great enmity between them and the Christians.
Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Of course. These practices and beliefs have made people, even non-Muslims, hate them.
And the Pope’s advisers could have found more in that vein, simply by googling “Ahmed el-Tayeb” and “Jews.” Pope Francis ought now to be fully informed about his “friend and dear brother,” so that he may realize just how wrong he was in his fulsome endorsements of El-Tayeb, and say nothing more about the Grand Imam. Or does antisemitism not bother this Pope?
Preparing for his trip to the United Arab Emirates, the Pope delivered a video message to the people of the U.A.E.: “Al Salamu Alaikum,” Arabic for “peace be with you,” Pope Francis said at the beginning of his message.
“I am happy that in a few days I will be able to visit your country, a land that strives to be a model of coexistence, human brotherhood and encounter among different civilizations and cultures where many find a secure place to work and live freely in respect for diversity,” Pope Francis said.
What “model of coexistence” and “respect for diversity” is to be found in the U.A.E.? U.A.E. natives constitute 20 percent of the population, while foreign workers and other expatriates account for the other 80 percent. At least one million of those foreign workers are Catholics. Fewer than two dozen churches have been allowed in the U.A.E., to serve between one and two million Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians. There is one tiny temple for half-a-million Hindus. Is that handful of churches and a single Hindu temple “respect for diversity”? Non-Muslims are forbidden from trying to proselytize; Muslims, however, are free to try to convert non-Muslims. Non-Muslims must not pray, or make any other display of their faith, in public. Compared to Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. is an oasis of religious freedom. Non-Muslims have houses of worship, albeit very few, where they can conduct services undisturbed. In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, a handful of Korean nurses softly singing Christmas carols in their shared living quarters, behind closed doors, led to their immediate expulsion from the Kingdom.
The U.A.E. is not, pace Pope Francis, a “model of coexistence” and “human brotherhood.” Millions of foreign workers, especially non-Muslims, are relentlessly exploited; working conditions for manual laborers have been described as harrowing; domestic workers routinely have 14-hour days. Still, it’s not quite as bad as in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Non-Muslims have to watch what they post, and what they say. A Christian singer made a video in which she innocently pointed toward a mosque with her left hand, having no idea of the significance of the left hand in Arab culture; she was arrested for showing disrespect for Islam. Others have been hauled into court for derogatory remarks they supposedly made about Islam and Muhammad on Facebook; even getting into an argument about foreign policy can lead to such charges, and when it’s a non-Muslim’s word against that of a Muslim, in a Muslim country, we know who wins.
There is one place in the Middle East where there is full freedom of worship for adherents of all religions, in that respect a “model of coexistence.” That country is Israel. Pope Francis visited there in May 2014. He was greeted warmly by the Israelis at Ben Gurion Airport, just before going off to visit — even before Israel proper — the “Palestinian” Authority. In between scheduled engagements, the Pope ordered his motorcade to make an unexpected stop in Bethlehem. He got out of his popemobile and made his way to a particular section of Israel’s security wall. This is an often-photographed section of the wall covered with graffiti that compare Palestinian Bethlehem to the Jewish Warsaw ghetto. Near a spot where someone had very recently sprayed “Free Palestine,” the Pope touched the wall and began to pray. Of course, a dozen video and still cameras were capturing that moment. He must have known that the videos and still photographs taken of him at that very spot, with those pro- “Palestinian” graffiti, would go all over the world, helping to promote the Palestinian cause. The Pope’s effusiveness is saved for the likes of Ahmed el-Tayeb, and the “human brotherhood” and “model of coexistence” he claims to have found in the U.A.E.