Actors and spectators

Islam is one of the things that worries many people in the West, whether believers or not, not so much for the relative success of Islam’s spiritual message – few baptized embrace it – but for its expansionary drive, its ‘sacralization’ of violence, which some justify with the Koran, and the global project of society that it propagates and that involves certain applications that do not inspire peace of mind. Many people ask themselves whether Islam, especially as a result of immigration and a higher than average birth rate, is not gradually invading Europe in order to transform it into a “land of Islam”, because Islam exists wherever Muslims establish themselves. Once “we met Muslims, now we meet Islam”. This statement illustrates the problem very well. With the first great waves of immigration of Maghrebis, Africans and Turks, in the 1950s and after, the social teaching of the Church had to do with workers who came as unmarried men, for a limited time, and who did not bother much, or at all, about their religion. Subsequently, we witnessed the establishment throughout Europe of a religion, now the second largest in the world in numerical terms, with its own traditions, doctrine (polygamy, Ramadan, veil) and its own claims. We need to acknowledge this and enter into dialogue with the believers of Islam. Europeans have no need to spend years in the Middle East or in Asia to meet Islam, because they already find it on their doorsteps, at home. And if Muslims settle in Europe, they do so to settle for good, even if the situation in their country of origin improves. On the contrary, our emigrants in Arab countries return home after accumulating a sizeable capital. It should be noted that Eastern Christians abroad are far more numerous than the European Christians who have remained in the Orient. Paradoxically, out of self-defence and search for identity, Muslim emigration, bringing with it its own culture, is allergic to integration and may lead to fundamentalist excess. But the emigrant is not a criminal; he is merely searching for a better life. It is worth pointing out that the real vindication of the Islamic movements is the assertion of the religious character of the State and the application of Islamic law, the Sharia. Apart from that, they have no political, economic or social project; so, many Muslim governments do not share the Islamist option. Nonetheless there are some that, as a result of the way they govern, are a fertile breeding ground for fundamentalism. Faced by this situation, European citizens show two attitudes: those who suffer the consequences of policy towards Islam, formulated according to the interests and the ideologies of the moment, passive spectators who observe and lament, and those who are actors, who influence these positions, pose questions and make forecasts. For Christian citizens, dialogue is not an option: it is a need of faith. Inter-religious dialogue will be all the more fruitful, the more Catholics are conscious of their identity which also includes the sense of belonging to their own country, fidelity to religious practice and proclamation of the faith, whenever the occasion for it should present itself. Inter-religious dialogue is not just the search for points held in common, to promote peace, but is also an occasion to recover common dimensions in their respective communities: prayer, fasting, the adoration of God, solidarity. We have no need for false messages that conceal narrow political interests, from whatever side they come. All are invited to root out fanaticism, through education, friendship, hospitality and mutual understanding. Fear generates aggressiveness.