RUTHFULLY YOURS

Failures of practical reasoning are typical of the Pontiff’s off-the cuff-remarks, which so often display a disturbing lack of rhetorical discipline. This tendency can only sow division within the Church while undermining the integrity of his pontificate and, indeed, of the papacy itself’
The December 2016 issue of Quadrant includes my reflection (“Pope Francis’s Version of Catholic Wisdom“) on the Pontiff’s contribution to Catholic social and political reflection. I write as both a Catholic and a student of political philosophy, one who respects the person and office of the Pope, but who is troubled by Pope Francis’s increasing tendency to conflate Catholic wisdom with a left-leaning secular humanitarianism. I took my bearing from the most considered reflections of the Pope (his encyclical on ecological matters, his repeated evocations of Divine mercy, his apostolic letters on the joy of the gospel and on human and divine love, as well as his thought-provoking speeches to the European parliament and to the American Congress). I found much in Francis that is in continuity with his great predecessors (much more than many of his critics acknowledge). But I also find much that smacks of the bien-pensant and politically correct. Still, the balance in these official documents and speeches tilts towards sobriety, thoughtfulness and fidelity to the great tradition of Catholic wisdom.

The same cannot be said if one pays attention to the interviews and off-the-cuff remarks by the Pope that have come to dominate the public impression of his pontificate. He got off to a bad start when he told journalists on his return from the World Youth Day in Brazil in 2013 “who am I to judge?” the activities and motives of homosexual Catholics who attempt to remain in communion with Christ and his Church. He should have anticipated that his remarks would be used at the service of moral relativism and by those who attempt to undermine traditional marriage in the name of open-ended “love” and “marriage equality.” Recently, returning from another World Youth Day in Kracow, Poland, the Pope made the fantastic and disturbing claim that “Catholic violence” is just as much a problem as “Islamic violence”—and this right after the brutal assassination of Father Jacques Hammel by Islamist terrorists in a church in northern France. The only example of “Catholic violence” that Pope Francis could come up with was that of a baptized young man who had killed his girlfriend for clearly non-religious reasons or motives.

The Pope further insisted that every religion has its “fundamentalists,” Islam no more than others. This is morally obtuse and at odds with all the evidence. And the Pope claimed, with no supporting arguments and many leftist clichés, that Islamic terrorists commit heinous acts of violence in response to poverty and social injustice. Capitalism, and the “god of money,” were the ultimate source of terrorism in the modern world. These sorts of haphazard claims, clearly more ideological than Christian, make it harder to respect a Pope whose more considered reflections deserve our attention and respect.

This colossal failure of practical reasoning is typical of Francis’s off-the cuff-remarks. He displays a remarkable lack of rhetorical discipline, which can only undermine the integrity of his pontificate and of the papacy more generally. Recently, in an interview with the leftist Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, he claimed that it is the Communists today who “think like Christians.” He ignored the Church’s principled and long-standing opposition to every form of totalitarianism. Communists are said by Francis to have a special Christ-like concern for the poor. The Pope is silent about the tens of millions of ordinary workers and peasants who perished at the hands of ideological regimes of the Communist type in the 20th century. Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the Pope has no understanding of Communist theory and practice, that he associates Communists exclusively with those activists and intellectuals imprisoned or killed by the military government during the “dirty war” in Argentina during the 1970’s. In a word, his vision is remarkably parochial and blind to the greatest evil of the twentieth century, a totalitarianisms inspired by viciously anti-Christian ideology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tFFgtofowA&feature=youtu.be

An Iranian revolutionary court on Sunday sentenced Ahmad Montazeri to 21 years in prison on a range of national-security charges. The 60-year-old cleric will serve a mere six years by Iranian justice standards, owing to his age and his family’s special status in Iranian revolutionary history. But his sentence is a reminder that the regime remains as brutal as ever, even as it reaps the economic benefits of its nuclear deal with the West.

Mr. Montazeri’s crime was to release tapes that capture his father, the Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, denouncing the regime’s repression during its first decade in power. The elder Montazeri, who died in 2009, was one of the regime’s founders with Ayatollah Khomeini. Tapped to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader, Montazeri grew increasingly disillusioned with the theocracy he had established.

The final break came in 1988 when the regime executed thousands of leftists and supporters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group. The MEK had helped Khomeini topple the Shah in 1979. But after the revolution the new supreme leader set out to consolidate power and liquidate his erstwhile allies.

Montazeri denounced the executions at the time, accusing senior security apparatchiks in the 1988 recording of committing the “biggest crime in the Islamic Republic, for which the history will condemn us.” He added: “Beware of 50 years from now, when people will pass judgment on the leader [Khomeini] and will say he was a bloodthirsty, brutal and murderous leader.”

For his dissent, Montazeri was sidelined and spent much of the rest of his life under house arrest. Among the men he addressed in the tape was Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who is now Justice Minister in the “moderate” government that negotiated the nuclear deal.

Confronted with the recording this summer, Mr. Pourmohammadi said, “We take pride in executing God’s commandment with respect to the hypocrites,” using the regime’s epithet for the MEK. This episode about the nature of the Tehran regime is worth keeping in mind as Donald Trump becomes the seventh U.S. President to confront the Iranian threat.

The affair at France’s huge state-owned transport company, RATP, is the story of failed integration. The company, tired of seeing its buses stoned and burned regularly in some Paris suburbs, began to hire as drivers young Muslims who were living in the suburbs. The result of this hiring policy is that buses continue to be stoned in the suburbs, but Islamist ideology is now spreading within the company.

At France’s national railway (SNCF), as at RATP and Air France, similar problems are arising: mainstream unions are losing ground to religion. Unions have to accept infiltration by Islamists, or they lose elections.

In daily life, the company tries to cope with the fact that prayer comes first, before serving the public. Trains can be delayed because of a driver’s prayers, changing rooms become prayer rooms, men refuse to shake the hand of female colleagues, and intolerance of homosexuals is spreading.

French companies try to cope with Islamism in its two modes: the soft one — veils spreading throughout every office, an increase in lawsuits against employers on religious grounds; and the hard one — terrorism and threats of Islamic terrorism.

According to the French satirical weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, in October, 40 Air France plane fuel hatches were covered in graffiti stating: “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Greatest”). Citing anti-terror police, the magazine reported that airplane functions had been deliberately tampered with and that the pilots’ communications and engine control from the cockpit kept failing.

This repeated sabotage of several planes was spotted thanks to standardized safety checks. A quick police investigation identified an employee of Air France to be the responsible party. The problem: this French convert to Islam, knowing he was under suspicion, already left the country. He is now said to “be a refugee in Yemen, while his wife continues to lead an Islamic school near Orly [another airport close to Paris].” Added to this, Air France computer systems were hacked: Last Christmas, security announcements on a Paris-Amsterdam flight were programmed to be automatically delivered in Arabic. A computer bug, Air France said.