(RNS) Amid heightened tensions over ISIS-fueled terror attacks and
anti-Muslim rhetoric, a prominent U.S. cardinal says Islam “wants to
govern the world” and Americans must decide if they are going to
reassert “the Christian origin of our own nation” in order to avoid that
fate.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, a Rome-based prelate known as an outspoken
conservative and critic of Pope Francis’ reformist approach, said in an
interview on Wednesday (July 20) that Islam is “fundamentally a form of
government.”
While Catholic teaching recognizes that all Abrahamic faiths worship
the same God, Burke criticized Catholic leaders who, in an effort to be
tolerant, have a tendency “to simply think that Islam is a religion like
the Catholic faith or the Jewish faith.”
“That simply is not objectively the case,” he said.
Burke, who was once archbishop of St. Louis, stressed that he did not
want to be “disrespectful” of Islam or “generate hostility.”
But he said he worries that many people do not understand that, in his
view, “when they (Muslims) become the majority in any country they have
the duty to submit the whole population to Shariah,” as the Islamic code
of law is known.
The cardinal is a canon lawyer who headed the Vatican’s court system
before Francis named him chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a Rome-based
charitable order.
Burke was speaking by telephone from his home state of Wisconsin, where
he was spending time this summer while doing interviews for a new book,
“Hope for the World: To Unite All Things in Christ.” The book is an
extended interview with a French journalist and it covers a range of
often controversial topics.
Speaking to RNS, Burke said that individual Muslims “are lovely people”
and can speak “in a very peaceful manner about questions of religion.”
“But my point is this: When they become a majority in any country then
they have the religious obligation to govern that country. If that’s
what the citizens of a nation want, well, then, they should just allow
this to go on. But if that’s not what they want, then they have to find a
way to deal with it.”
He said that in some cities in France and Belgium with large Muslim
populations “there are little Muslim states” that are effectively “no-go
zones” for government authorities – an assertion that is widely
disputed.
But Burke claimed “these things aren’t anomalies for Islam. This is the
way things are to go. … And if you do understand that and you are not
at peace with the idea of being forcibly under an Islamic government,
then you have reason to be afraid.”
He cited historical examples of famous military clashes between Muslim
forces and the forces of Christian nations of Europe, such the Battle of
Lepanto in 1571 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683, both of which marked
defeats for the Ottoman Empire.
“These historical events relate directly with the situation of today.
There’s no question that Islam wants to govern the world,” Burke said.
When asked how the West should respond, the cardinal did not cite or
endorse specific proposals, like those championed by the Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump and other conservatives, to ban or
limit Muslims coming into the U.S.
“I think the appropriate response,” he said, “is to be firm about the
Christian origin of our own nation, and certainly in Europe, and the
Christian foundations of the government, and to fortify those.”
He said that form of government permits all people to exercise their
religious faith – “as long as it’s not against good order” – and
“practices that tolerance which follows from Christian charity.”
“I think we have to insist on that. We have to say no, our country is not free to become a Muslim state.”
Those comments elaborate on an answer that Burke gives in the new book,
in which he says of Islam that “the (Catholic) Church really should be
afraid of it.”
That is a marked contrast to the approach of Francis and most other
church leaders, who have called for dialogue with Islam and a welcoming
attitude toward Muslim refugees fleeing strife in many lands.
Official church teaching has for decades also recognized Islam as an
Abrahamic faith whose followers worship the same God as Jews and
Christians.
Burke has frequently made news with his sharp criticisms of Francis’
pontificate (he once called it “a rudderless ship”) and the pope’s more
pastoral approach. The cardinal has also called on church leaders to be
more forceful in battling abortion rights and gay marriage and has said
the church has become too “feminized.”
Courtesy: Religion News Service
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