Magister on the Jesuits on Islam

Good stuff here. Amy Welborn points to this article by Sandro Magister.

The important points in the article if you don't have time to read it (Magister introduces it first):

• An article by one of the Jesuits of “La Civiltà Cattolica” makes an extremely critical analysis of Islam...
• One of the four topics considered by Benedict XVI and the cardinals during their day “of reflection and prayer” at the last consistory, on March 23, was Islam.
• Rahman (an Afghan citizen condemned to death for converting to Christianity) was in fact freed and transferred to Italy under protective custody. And he has Benedict XVI to thank for that.
• But can this more energetic approach to the question of Islam also be found in the analysis the Church makes of the phenomenon? The answer is yes. The essay is entitled “The Islamic Question,” and occupies 30 pages of the journal Studium. It is accompanied by extensive footnotes, and is featured prominently beginning with the cover, which depicts a minaret standing out among the skyscrapers of a Western city.
• But the really interesting thing about the article is its authors, Roberto A.M. Bertacchini and Piersandro Vanzan, and in particular the latter of these. Vanzan is a Jesuit, a professor of pastoral theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and above all he is part of the college of writers for “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the magazine of the Rome Jesuits that is printed with the inspection and authorization of the Vatican authorities. Because of its explosive contents, it was unthinkable that the essay by Bertacchini and Vanzan would be published in a magazine strictly connected to the Holy See by statute, and representative of its official stance.
• The only substantial point that separates Oriana Fallaci’s analysis from that of Bertacchini and Vanzan is that, while she maintains that Islam is incapable of reform and incompatible with the Christian West, the other two acknowledge that an integration of the two civilizations is possible, albeit extremely difficult. And Benedict XVI is also known to acknowledge this last possibility.

My highlights from the article itelf (here's where it gets good):

• The pervasiveness of the global village is such that there is only one way to escape its grasp: destroy it. And this is Al-Zawahiri’s ideological program, which he pursues with a complex strategy. For the formula of “modernizing Islam,” he substitutes another: “Islamizing modernity,” and therefore the West.
• This pan-Islamist program might make some smirk, just as many smirked at Hitler before his political ascent. But this is a real program, which is being carried out according to a clear plan, and although it is working slowly, it is producing results. That this is a real program can be seen in many ways.
• The first piece of macroscopic data is that from Afghanistan to Kashmir to Chechnya to Ossetia to the Philippines to Saudi Arabia to Bosnia to Kosovo to Palestine to Egypt to Algeria to Morocco, sizeable groups have unleashed a war against the West. It is impossible to think that these attacks are completely independent from each other.
• The second piece of macroscopic data is terrorism, especially if one has the patience to follow the thread that extends from July 7, 2005 to 1969, and the airplane from the Rome Fiumicino airport that Leila Khaled hijacked and blew up in Damascus.
• The third piece of evidence is anti-Zionism...
• The fourth indication is missionary activity...
• and the fifth is immigration. Aisha Farina, an Italian woman from Milan who converted to Islam and has publicly expressed her veneration for Bin Laden as for a reliable guide, said this: “Maybe all the Italians will end up converting. In any case, we will conquer you peacefully, because our numbers double every generation, but you are at zero growth.”
• But Islam is advancing in other ways, too...
• But there is an obstacle to this strategy: the American troops on Islamic soil...
• The sixth and final piece of evidence is the feelings of joy expressed by the Islamic population in the public squares, on websites, and even in the press after September 11, 2001, and also after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, which the Kuwait daily “Al’Siyassa” called “a soldier sent by God.” If one comes to the point of rejoicing at horrible things, this joy breaks off natural human solidarity and sharpens the meaning of the expression “infidel dogs.” A massacre of dogs doesn’t affect me; they are not human. This is racism, and one must begin with calling it by its name, and then arrive at the appropriate consequences.
• In short, the Islamization of the West is neither a phantasm nor merely something feared: it is an intention and a fact that emerges from an objective examination of the evidence.
• Moderate Islam, properly so called, does not exist because there is no institutional and moderate form of Islamic theology. There are moderate Muslims, and some of them see things with a clear and long-term perspective. But Islam itself, or rather the institutional religious culture of the Muslims, has reacted in its encounter with modernity by entrenching itself in fundamentalist positions...
• The necessity for extensive self-criticism on relations with Islam, one that would finally emerge from a blind and suicidal “niceness,” is therefore unavoidable.
• Dialoguing with those who have, in the back of their minds, the idea of Islamizing us and reducing us to dhimmi status, as subjects of an inferior order, simply makes no sense...

As you can see, there is a GREAT DEAL of information in this article, so I encourage reading the rest.

What is particularly important about this article (besides its excellent and insightful points about the Muslim world), is who is saying this. Though these sentiments are not yet being published in mainline Vatican-affiliated publications (such as La Civiltà Cattolica), they are being published by the regular contributors to these publications... Magister explains the situation more comprehensively of course.

Anyway, there is a clear path here towards this type of honest evaluation of the situation receiving press attention in more "mainstream" publications and from more prominant sources...