The Vatican’s 2010 meeting for the Middle
East has been misunderstood by many in the region as calling for a “new
crusade” against Islam.
As officials gathered in Rome recently
to assess last October’s special Synod for Bishops, a veteran Vatican
adviser on Christian-Muslim dialogue told CNA that many Muslims saw the
Synod as “a new project against Islam.”
“Many people, many
Muslims, who have no idea of Christianity at all are interpreting it ...
as a new crusade,” Father Samir Khalil Samir, SJ, of the Pontifical
Oriental Institute said in a late January interview.
Church
leaders from the region and Vatican officials met Jan. 20-21 to assess
reactions to the Synod, and to suggest themes for the document that Pope
Benedict XVI is writing in response to the Synod, known as a
“post-synodal apostolic exhortation.”
On Feb. 8, the Vatican
issued a statement that concluded: the “socio-political situation in the
various countries of the Middle East remains tense.”
Fr. Samir
said that the Synod was widely interpreted in political, not religious
terms. “When Muslims meet,” he said, “usually they meet on a political
level.” As a result, many saw the bishops as meeting to discuss “how to
attack Islam.”
“Fifty-seven Muslim countries meet yearly, usually
invited by Saudi Arabia and they discuss as nations how to defend
Islam,” he said.
“In their mentality, the West is still seen as
Christian nations. It is still Christianity against Islam – properly
because they don’t make a difference between religion and state.”
In
its statement, the Vatican reported that the Synod’s final message had
been sent to “political figures” throughout the region. It also reported
that an international congress had been held in Syria on the state of
Muslim-Christian relations in Arab countries. In addition, a meeting of
Christians and Jews has been held in Jerusalem to “promote more
objective information about the synodal assembly.”
The Vatican
insisted in its statement that “respect for Christian communities” is
necessary “to eradicate any hotbeds of anti-Christian sentiment in the
Middle East, to halt the emigration of Christians from that region,
which is their native land, and to favor the common good.”
The
Vatican’s press office said the meeting was held to prepare the council
members for direct collaboration in the Pope’s eventual preparation of a
final document, called an apostolic exhortation.
The Pope will set
forth his teaching to guide the future of the Church on pastoral and
practical questions proposed at the conclusion of the Synod.
The
next meeting of the Special Council for the Middle East of the General
Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, under the leadership of the Synod’s
secretary general, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, will be held Mar. 30-31.