THE TABLET

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840

ISLAMOPHOBIA AND OTHER PREJUDICES

IGNORANCE OF RELIGION CAN CAUSE WARS

The late Archbishop of York, John Habgood, once pointed out that, seen from outside, other people’s religious beliefs may seem utterly implausible. It was a word to the wise in the context of inter-Christian ecumenical relations. And it is highly relevant to what is happening in the Middle East, and how it is seen from the West. Calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, for instance, may seem eminently reasonable to secular diplomats, to avoid a further humanitarian catastrophe. But what if a Hezbollah fighter regards it as his religious duty to die while seeking the extermination of Israel, and an Israeli soldier sees it as his religious duty, if necessary, to die preventing it?

It is easy to dismiss this with the trite cliché that because religion sometimes causes wars, the world would be better without it. Atheism causes wars, too; and religious faith is unlikely to die out, whatever Western secular sophisticates think of it. Ignorance of religion can also cause wars: the seething sectarian complexities of modern Iraq under Saddam Hussein, had they been better appreciated, might have deterred Washington and London from their rash invasion in 2003. Fools rush in ... and many died, as simmering tensions between Shia and Sunni populations – and within them too – were unleashed once Saddam’s Ba’athist jackboots were lifted.

Hezbollah are Arab but they are also Shia. The non-Arab Iranian Shia regime under its present Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, inherited from his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the goal of uniting the Muslim world under Shia leadership, despite its religious divisions, in a holy war against Israel and the United States (and, to an extent, Britain). The US was seen as the major obstacle to the Shia vision of a world united under Allah.

Shia Islam is a dualist faith in that it sees the active presence of evil at work in the world, embodied as Satan and striving to defeat God’s purposes. Thus in both Ayatollahs’ world view, the US is the Great Satan and Israel its protégé, working to frustrate the triumph of Islam. Israel itself is assumed to have a religious goal, expressed in the notorious and fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, still widely read in the Middle East. This is not to deny that the Israeli government itself contains factions who seek something like a holy war to unify what they call Greater Israel, which was, according to the Hebrew Bible, promised by God to the Israelites at the time of Moses.

The Ayatollahs’ religious vision is not unique in the Muslim word: al-Qaida, Islamic State and the Taliban have a similar anti-Western ideology. But real though the threat from Iran is, all the evidence indicates that its belligerence is not shared by the great majority of Muslims across the world, Shia and Sunni, who are content to live peaceful God-fearing lives as good citizens of whichever country they happen to be in. In some ways they are “more British than the British”, or “more German than the Germans”. This is why attempts to “other” them as an alien presence are so unfair. Far from harbingers of a “clash of civilisations”, they represent an enriching addition to the cultural mix. Islamophobia is a lazy prejudice thriving on ignorance, which can lead to grave policy mistakes.

KEY ISSUE FOR THE SYNOD

START TO SEE WOMEN AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES

Aprocess which might be called the “synodification of the Catholic Church” has resumed in Rome, with intense interest in some quarters, a good deal of apathy in others. Its bow wave has caused turbulence among church officials who look to an uncertain future and see their interests threatened by it. It has raised hopes while dashing them, as the reform of such a great and ancient institution had seemed almost unimaginable. Catholicism is clericalist by nature, would be a common view, and the defeat of clericalism – one of the objectives set out by Pope Francis at the outset of the synodal process – seems unlikely. But it could yet emerge. The need is immense, the prize is great, and surely worth the effort.

“Clericalist” in effect means “male”. Visiting Belgium last week Francis set many teeth on edge with some clumsy and patronising (if well-meaning) remarks, defining women in terms of traditional gender roles, as mothers, sisters and wives. Why could he not see them as they see themselves, as leaders and creators, engineers and artists, scientists and surgeons, shapers of tomorrow not guardians of yesterday?

In the preliminary discussions before the second and final session of the Synod opened this week a cluster of issues have come to the fore around clericalism, abuse, women, abortion and synodality, and the relationship between them. The Pope does not seem to grasp the connection. Sometimes this has focused on the issue of female ordination, at least initially to the diaconate. But that important debate is symptomatic of something more fundamental. Most women do not want to be ordained deacons, especially if that would mean clericalising them instead of accepting them as they are, active lay women and disciples of Christ. And they want to be part of a Church where clerical sexual abuse doesn’t happen because it cannot.

This session of the Synod must explore these issues. It will not be painless. The Church has been married to the notion of the “complementarity” of the sexes for too long for there to be an amicable divorce from it. But women can no longer be defined by their relationship to men. Many have walked away from the Church; if this remains its position, many more will join them. And this radical probing cannot exclude Catholic teaching on sexual morality. There is a silent schism among the faithful on divorce, contraception, abortion, sex outside marriage and so on. Can this dissent simply be dismissed as sinful disobedience, or evidence that this teaching, touching the lives of women so intimately, has gone astray? A more synodal Church will be one where such issues are honestly and openly addressed, not swept under the carpet.

2 | THE TABLET | 5 OCTOBER 2024

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