Bigmouth Jesuit to St. Peter: ‘You Can’t Say These Words!’

Hardly a day goes by when the Detroit Free Press can resist indulging one of its two favorite vices, either attacking the Catholic Church or championing Islam. In today’s paper, “Area Catholics, Muslims, seek healing over pope,” the Free Press gets to indulge both at once. The drift of David Crumm's article is that, since the stupid old Pope went and put his foot in it last week, local ecumenical efforts between Muslims and Catholics are now at risk. You’ll notice not one local Catholic parishioner was asked to comment on how worried he or she is about the threat to Muslim relations in the diocese. That’s because if posed such a question the average Catholic parishioner would respond with a blank, uncomprehending stare that there even exist such ecumenical efforts, nor care. Or he or she might say what he or she really thinks of Muslims, which of course would not be allowed to be printed in the paper.

For color commentary on the wisdom, or lack of, of what the Pope said, the Free Press speed dialed over to Father Thomas Reese, S.J., who is puffed by Mr. Crumm as “Jesuit scholar at Georgetown University and an expert on the Vatican.” But what the article forgets to note is that Fr. Reese’s most recent expertise on the Vatican was deepened last year when he left the editor’s chair at the Jesuit's America magazine, in significant part because of his uncontrolled antagonism to Catholic orthodoxy—and his years-long antagonism of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict.

For those who don’t know what a Jesuit is, the term is a shorthand reference to priests belonging to the Society of Jesus, an Order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century, and whose members, literally, swore personal allegiance to the Pope, and to his defense, and the defense of the truth of the faith. But this majestic definition of the term has fallen out of favor in recent years. In fact, an upcoming edition of one Catholic encyclopedia has revised its definition of “Jesuit” for accuracy, to now say simply “a hippie with Holy Orders.” My only point being, if you want fair commentary on the Vatican, don’t go to someone who blames the Pope for scaring him off his magazine.

But, even if Father Reese isn’t exactly a reliable spokesman for the Church or the Vatican, he does seem to be quite sound on the salient Muslim doctrine that free speech and Islam can’t exist together on the same planet at the same time. Father Reese’s impassioned plea to his liege lord, the Pope, is: “'Your Holiness, you just can't say these words!' "

And why can’t the Pope say these words? Because they aren’t true? Because they aren’t just? Because they are misleading? No, no, a thousand and one times no. It is because if he says these words, Muslims will use it as an excuse to murder Christians in Muslim lands where, according to Muslims, the Christians live under their “protection” and are beneficiaries of their fabled (literally) Muslim tolerance. And if the Pope says these words, says Father Reese, “people will die in parts of Africa, and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East,” In the mind of a man like Fr. Reese, the irrational acting out of violent Muslims is what makes the Pope’s remarks, in Father Reese’s Georgetown terminology, “dumb.” (And undoubtedly, in Father’s Jesuitical mind. Benedict’s remarks automatically consign the Holy Father to being a “big dumbhead.”)

Now, the really irritating thing about a man like Father Reese is that he undoubtedly sees himself a victim of unjust punishment for his own commitment to free speech, or, as they love calling it in his circle of self-righteous know-it-alls, “speaking out,” “calling for justice,” and, my personal favorite, “speaking truth to power.” And, when faced with nuts burning down churches in Gaza and the Pope’s passing reference to the irrational quality of Islam, at whom does Father Reese choose to address his call to justice? At Benedict, of course.

On the theological level alone the idea that the successor of St. Peter, whose forebear began his ministry by getting beat up by religious leaders for saying things they didn’t like, should be commanded by one of his own silly priests to stop saying anything, let alone the unvarnished naked truth about the differences between Christianity and Islam, is a perversion of justice the only appropriate remedy for which require Father Reese to serve the rest of his life in the Dhimmi parish in Mogadishu where the late Sr. Leonella went to Mass. Mind you, I don’t think the Vatican should silence him. We're all for free speech at DU. Just let him serve in Mogadishu, where they murder nuns, and he should be free to indulge his speaking the truth to the religious power there, if he dares. Such an assignment would be justice for Reese, but then again, these brave missionaries deserve a much better priest.

But religious considerations aside, even as a matter of simple civic virtue how can Father Reese seriously believe that a perpetually outraged Islam will ever be pacified if we just keep shutting up?

And as for all that Catholic-Muslim bridge-building the Free Press goes on about, when local Muslims talk about the wonderful relationships with other faiths they've been building through the years, and over which they worry oh so tenderly, notice the relationships are always suspiciously one way. Consider this telling paragraph: “Imam Achmat Salie of the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills said Tuesday, ‘There are so many wonderful relationships we've built between our communities. Just last summer, a Vatican official came and spent a day at our mosque, learning from us and even attending a wedding here.’”

Notice that little bit, “learning from us”? Don’t get me wrong, but isn't this how Baptists sound when someone’s on the verge of getting saved? This isn’t bridge-building. It’s proselytism, only when Muslims do it, (not Baptists!), it's convert--or die.

As proof, consider how we will never hear or read about any Muslim religious leader describing an interfaith encounter in which a Muslim learns from anyone else, or deigns to sit still for a few words about faith in Christ, or the meaning of the Incarnation, or the Eucharist, or the Day of Atonement. No, it's always about their customs, their Halal, their beliefs. They already know enough about our beliefs to know they hate and despise them. Their idea of conversation is, we talk, you become Muslim.

I don’t really believe for a second that Muslim religious leaders are building bridges so that everybody can pass happily back and forth in the sunshine of religious diversity and just plain spiritual fun. They are building siege works, and like the clever guys that, in many ways, they really are, they get the besieged enemies to do most of the building for them.

We at DU are used to seeing public statements from the likes of CAIR, and the ADC, demanding that we can’t say this, and we can’t say that, and we can’t say the other thing. That’s why we’re here, because we think we can say these things, and we intend to keep right on saying them.

So phooey on useful idiots like Father Reese telling Christian leaders, who are speaking out for our side, to be quiet just because Muslims don't like what they're hearing. We're getting sick of being told that Muslims will stop their killing if only we nonMuslims will all just shut up.