Title: That's not faith,
that's provocation
Author: Gordon Urquhart
Publication: <http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/,4273,3929396,00.html>
Date: November 12, 1999
Catholics and Muslims
are uniting in a pernicious new alliance
Religion in the UK: special
report
There was a time when
dialogue between religions had a goal of international peace and understanding.
In the past decade, however, a new and potentially dangerous form of interfaith
collaboration has emerged. On Sunday, religious leaders from different
traditions will gather in Geneva for the World Congress of Families II.
The aim of the event is to affirm that 'the natural family is the fundamental
social unit, inscribed in human nature and centred around the voluntary
union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage'.
Its purpose is to 'discuss
ways to counter 85 anti-family initiatives advanced at the UN and other
world bodies', including 'the myth of overpopulation', preserving traditional
roles for men and women, the rights of the traditional family, the struggle
against legalised abortion - all served up with a generous helping of anti-gay
propaganda.
Costing $1.5m and expected
to attract 2,000 delegates, the congress is the most important manifestation
to date of this new form of interdoctrinal collaboration based on the deeply
conservative values which unite the most reactionary believers of different
faiths - in particular fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. According
to Allan Carson of the Howard Center, a conservative American think-tank,
one of the two sponsoring bodies of WCFII, 'the contemporary 'coming together'...
occurs only among the most orthodox of each group, people that are least
likely to compromise''.
They are united not only
by moral principles but also by the fundamentalist rejection of separation
between church and state; they are therefore committed to imposing their
views by political means.
It comes as no surprise
to find that Christian traditions represented at the congress include evangelical
Protestants and Mormons: the Mormon NGO Family Voice is the second major
sponsor (entertainment for the event is provided by Ma and Pa Osmond).
It is disturbing, however, at this showcase of international fundamentalism,
to find that the Catholic church is strongly represented - and at the highest
level: the opening speaker is Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, the president of
the Vatican's Council for the Family and one of John Paul II's right-hand
men.
Although the Holy See
now prefers to appear as a simple participant in this new form of interfaith
collaboration, in fact it was the Vatican, under the instigation of John
Paul II, which first enlisted the support of fundamentalist Muslim nations
for its conservative policies in the run-up to the Cairo UN Conference
on Population and Development in 1994. Determined to oppose women's rights,
reproductive rights, sex education, contraception and gay and lesbian rights
in the conference document, Rome was desperately short of allies among
western nations. With fundamentalist Muslims, however, they saw eye to
eye on all these issues.
Following Cairo, the
Vatican launched a vast programme of contacts with fundamentalist Muslim
countries, based on commonly held moral values. The alliance was further
strengthened at the Beijing Women's Conference of 1995 when personalities
from the US Christian right, such as Allan Carlson and James Dobson of
the powerful Focus on the Family organisation, added their enthusiastic
support. Two years later, the first World Congress of Families was held
in Prague with a host of Vatican dignitaries. Conservative groups from
all over the world sent delegates. Among participants from the UK were
Valerie Riches, spokesperson for Family and Youth Concern, much-quoted
by the Daily Mail on moral questions, and Dr Majid Katme, the Muslim coordinator
for the pro-life organisation, SPUC.
Katme has played a key
role in lobbying Muslim nations on behalf of the Vatican at UN conferences
and is therefore an authoritative spokesperson for the new multi-faith
coalition. Responsible for 'all these destructive, disease-ridden, immoral,
anti-God, and anti-family values' in UN documents were 'a gang of extremist
feminists who are sick and twisted in their minds, perhaps having had very
bad life experiences'. Katme advocated the need for 'A BATTLE PLAN (emphasis
in original)... in order to oppose and expose this filth'.
Vatican officials cannot
be unaware of the potential dangers of the explosive cultural brew they
have concocted. In this country we recently witnessed the direction the
new interfaith cooperation could take when British Islamic leaders declared
a fatwa against the American writer Terrence McNally for depicting a homosexual
Christ-figure in his play Corpus Christi. Anti-abortion killings in America
which have been linked to the teachings of Catholic pro-life groups are
another troubling precedent. The official church has washed its hands of
this kind of violence in the past. Currently, however, the protagonists
of the congress are loudly proclaiming their unanimity. Having fanned the
flames of intolerance, it will be difficult for Rome to disclaim responsibility
for an eventual conflagration. The Vatican's behaviour appears at the best
opportunist and at the worst dangerously irresponsible.
Gordon Urquhart is the
author of The Pope's Armada (Corgi)