For those interested in David Goldman’s Disappearing Middle Eastern Christians, Disappointing Bishops from Monday and William Doino’s Singling Out Israel Isn’t Christian from yesterday (both still being discussed), the Italian Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister has another report on Christians in the Middle East . It includes this depressing report from the recently concluded synod of Middle Eastern Catholic bishops:
On October 14, Maronite archbishop Edmond Farhat – former apostolic nuncio and official representative of Vatican politics —spoke at the synod.And the judgments he expressed confirmed that for the Holy See — although it accepts the objective of two states for Jews and Palestinians — the assumption still applies that the ultimate cause of all of the evils in the Middle East is precisely that “foreign body” which is Israel.
Nuncio Farhat said:
The Middle Eastern situation today is like a living organ that has been subject to a graft it cannot assimilate and which has no specialists capable of healing it. As a last resource, the Eastern Arab Muslim looked to the Church, believing, as he thinks himself, that it is capable of obtaining justice for him. This is not the case.He is disappointed, he is scared. His confidence has turned into frustration. He has fallen into a deep crisis. The foreign body, not accepted, gnaws at him and impedes him from taking care of his general state and development. The Middle Eastern Muslim, in the great majority of cases, is in crisis. He cannot make justice on his own. He finds any allies neither on the human nor the political level, let alone the scientific level.
He is frustrated. He revolts. His frustration has resulted in revolutions, radicalism, wars, terror and the call (da’wat) to return to radical teachings (salafiyyah). Wishing to find justice on his own radicalism turns into violence. He believes there will be more of an echo if he attacks the constituted bodies. The most accessible and fragile is the Church.
If one of the intentions of the Vatican authorities was to “moderate” the intransigent aversion to Israel of the Arab Churches of the Middle East, the words of nuncio Farhat have done the opposite.
Israel is, he thinks, a “foreign body” and its an existence an insufferable injustice to Middle Eastern Muslims in general. Now, the Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Iran are hurt by this “graft” exactly how? This little country on the edge of the region denies them justice how? The injustice is so great that it drives them to violence why?
None of this is really plausible, or if it is, the archbishop is saying that the Muslims are barbarians or children who can’t control their irrational reactions and can’t accept the realities the grown-up accepts. It didn’t take Britain 61 years to accept that the colonies were now an independent nation. Israel is there. It’s not going away. It’s not bothering you. As the kids say: Deal.
Let’s accept for a moment the archbishop’s image of Israel as a “foreign body.” In its effect on the Muslim’s life, Israel is much more like a piece of shrapnel that can’t be removed but causes no harm than like a graft that won’t take.
The normal man forgets about it. Out of sight, out of mind. Think how pointless complaining about it would be and how weird you’d think the man who felt his life blighted because he had a piece of shrapnel in his leg that didn’t affect him at all. You would suspect he had other problems he had displaced onto the shrapnel.
Update: To be fair to the archbishop, he doesn’t use the term “foreign body,” but his image of the graft the body cannot assimilate means the same thing, and “subject to” implies a graft imposed upon it that it did not want. Update II: Being overly trusting, I responded to a friend who told me that the archbishop didn’t use the term “foreign body” and corrected myself without checking my friend. Never mind Update I.
