The pope’s Mideast problem

The Vatican released Jan. 19 a discussion document in preparation for a synod of Mideast bishops next Oct. 10-24. I haven’t been able to locate the full text yet, but news reports indicate that it is really awful.

I’ll believe it when I get the official text, but snippets quoted in the wire services suggest that the Catholic bishops of the Middle East are taking an awfully soft position on terrorism:

It criticized the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian lands, saying it had made life difficult both for daily life and religious life since access to holy places are restricted.

Citing both the Israeli-Palestinian and Iraqi conflicts, it said: “The solution to conflicts rests in the hands of the stronger country in its occupying and inflicting wars on another country.”

“Violence is in the hands of the strong and weak alike, the latter resorting to whatever violence is within reach in order to be free,” it said.

Benedict XVI has a serious problem on his hands. Arab Christians act like German Jews circa 1914: in order to survive amidst a hostile Muslim majority, they are more Arab than the Arabs. Arab nationalism (starting with the Ba’ath party) is largely a Christian phenomenon, a means by which Christians found a way to take a leading role in local politics without associating with Islam.

The pope, I am reliably informed, believes that Middle Eastern Christians somehow will be the social leaven that enlightens Arab society, and has a deep and mystical attachment to this disappearing minority. I hate to take issue with a man I deeply admire, but in this case His Holiness is dreadfully mistaken.

I reviewed the issue at length in an Asia Times Online essay (August 11, 2009) entitled “The Closing of the Christian Womb.” In a nutshell: Turkey exterminated or expelled an Orthodox Christian population that comprised a fifth of the Anatolian population before World War I. After the destruction of Orthodox Christian life, the Maronites of Lebanon were left as the last substantial Christian community in the Levant. The Vatican sponsored them and France carved out the nation of Lebanon as a Christian enclave.

The French designed Lebanon’s constitution on the strength of a 1932 census showing a Christian majority, guaranteeing a slight Christian advantage in political representation. With the Christian population at barely 30% of the total and 23% of the population under 20 - Lebanon’s government refuses to take a census - Lebanon long since has lost its viability. The closing of the Christian womb has ensured eventual Muslim dominance.

Precise data are unobtainable, for demographics is politics in Lebanon, but Lebanon’s Christians became as infertile as their European counterparts. Muslims, particularly the impoverished and marginalized Shi’ites, had more babies. In 1971, the Shi’ite fertility rate was 3.8 babies per female, against only 2 for Maronite Christians, or just below replacement. Precise data are not available, but Christian fertility is well below replacement today.

Even before the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, infertility undermined the position of Lebanon’s Christians . The civil war itself arose from the demographic shift towards Muslims, who saw the Christian-leaning constitution as unfair. Christianity in the Levant ultimately failed for the same reason that it failed in Europe: populations that are nominally Christian did not trouble to reproduce.

Lebanon was a Catholic project from the outset, and the Vatican’s thinking about the region is colored nostalgia for a dying Christian community and a searing sense of regret for what might have been. If only the State of Israel hadn’t spoiled everything, many Arab Christians think, the Christian minority would have wielded enormous influence in the Arab world. It is true that in many Arab countries, Christians comprised a disproportionate share of merchants and intellectuals. But the same was true of the 130,000 Jews of Iraq before 1947, who owned half the businesses in Baghdad.

Infertility and emigration have reduced the Maronites to a vulnerable minority, which Hizbollah could mop up at leisure. What remains of their community constitutes a body of hostages under Iranian guns.

A leading advisor to the pope (and the author of some very good analysis of Islam), Father Samir Khalil Samir, articulated the Vatican’s hopes for a Christian revival in the Middle East as follows:

Previously, the Nahdah, the Arab renaissance that took place between the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century was essentially produced by the Christians. Now once again, a century later, the same thing is happening, although the Christians are in the minority in Arab countries. Today the “new” elements in Arab thinking are coming from Lebanon, where the interaction between Christians and Muslims is the most lively. Here there are five Catholic universities, in addition to the Islamic and state institutions. ... Today, the cultural impact of the Christians in the Middle East takes place through the means of communication ... Many Muslims, including authoritative leaders, in both Lebanon and Jordan, but also in Saudi Arabia, have stated this publicly: we do not want the Christians to leave our countries, because they are an essential part of our societies.

In the cited Asia Times essay, I ridiculed this view:

It sounds a bit like Mortimer Duke in the 1983 comedy Trading Places, shouting, “Now, you listen to me! I want trading reopened right now. Get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on!” Samir hopes that Arab Christians will provide the leaven to lift up Arab society in general; on the contrary, as Arab society sags, it squeezes the Arab Christians out. Sadly, it is may be too late for Lebanon’s Christians. “The process began at the turn of the century and it has intensified in recent years ... There are 12 million Christians in the Middle East. If the current trend continues, there will be fewer than 6 million by 2025,” Hilal Khashan, political science chair at the American University of Beirut told the Beirut Star on June 10, 2007.

It will do no good at all to try to revive a dying community. The unintended consequence of the Vatican’s emphasis on Lebanon’s Maronites and associated Arab Christian communities is to give Iran more leverage in the region.