Vatican hosts serious discussion on Islam after controversial video

As a Vatican delegation prepares to leave for civil war-torn Syria, the Catholic Church’s fraught relation with Islam has emerged as one of the main themes at a major gathering of the world’s bishops in Rome.

The debate was stirred by a leading cardinal who, on Saturday (Oct. 13), showed a controversial video called “Muslim Demographics” which purports to show Islam’s growing global influence. The video was shown during a Vatican-organized synod of bishops on new ways to evangelize in the modern world.

The accuracy of the seven-minute video’s data and projections have been sharply disputed and criticized by experts since its emergence in 2009, but the film sparked renewed soul-searching among Catholic leaders on the church’s stance towards the growth of Islam in the West and in Africa.

Highlighting the sensitivity of the issue, the Vatican was quick to distance itself from the video and its contents. The cardinal who showed it, Ghana’s Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican office for justice and peace, has apologized.

According to the Rev. Samir Khalil Samir, an Islam expert at the synod, some bishops were “highly critical” of the video and questioned its data and assertions. Others, such as Germany Cardinal Joachim Meisner, considered it a “warning” that the church must, at least in some measure, heed.

The “Demographics” debate erupted just as the Vatican was displaying renewed concern over the fate of Christian minorities in the Middle East. On Wednesday the Vatican announced the imminent departure of a high-level delegation to Syria.

The Vatican mission, which will include New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, will arrive in Damascus just a month after Pope Benedict’s visit to neighboring Lebanon in September. It will be a sign of “solidarity” towards the Syrian people and its suffering, said Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. [More]

SOURCE

RNS/Huffington Post