Reciprocity: Not just for Muslims anymore
Print Friendly VersionBy JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
One distorting effect of a major international crisis is the way it can cause an artificial reduction of other important issues to nothing more than epiphenomena of that crisis. In the wake of Regensburg, for example, there’s a tendency these days to construe Pope Benedict XVI’s arguments for “reciprocity,” meaning respect for religious freedom across the board, as little more than a critique of Islamic societies.
While the pope clearly does believe that Islamic states need to do a better job of respecting the rights of their religious minorities, that’s not where the story ends. Benedict and his key Vatican advisers also believe there is an equally serious threat to religious freedom in the developed West – not de jure but de facto, in the strong cultural tendency to exclude religious voices from public debate. One thinks of Alistair Campbell, for example, the legendary communications guru for Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, who in a 2003 interview with Vanity Fair magazine cut short questions about Blair’s religious faith with the epigrammatic line, “We don’t do God.”
That sort of exile of religion from the public sphere is also, in the view of senior Vatican policy makers, a breach of “reciprocity,” and deserves a challenge every bit as tough as that leveled against intolerant applications of shariah. Indeed, one of the reasons that, despite everything, Benedict and his team remain committed to dialogue with Islam is because they believe Muslims are their natural allies in insisting that a civilized society must provide space for religiously and morally serious people to help shape the public culture.
In other words, it may only appear for the moment that the reciprocity issue divides Christians and Muslims. In the long run, and seen in the broad sense which is current in the Vatican, it may actually end up being the cause which brings the two back together.
All this comes to mind in light of the speech delivered yesterday before the General Assembly of the United Nations by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See.
“My delegation is seriously concerned that freedom of religion or belief does not exist for individuals and communities, especially among religious minorities, in many parts of the world,” Migliore said. “We are also concerned that the high level of religious intolerance in some countries is leading to an alarming degree of polarization and discrimination. We share a grave duty to work together to reverse this trend.”
Though Migliore did not direct his remarks at any particular country or region, it was obvious that he had recent struggles over the role of religion in European society in mind when he made the following observation:
“There appears to exist a recurring case of intolerance when group interests or power struggles seek to prevent religious communities from enlightening consciences and thus enabling them to act freely and responsibly, according to the true demands of justice,” he said. “Likewise, it would be intolerant to denigrate religious communities and exclude them from public debate and cooperation just because they do not agree with options nor conform to practices that are contrary to human dignity.”
Migliore closed with a powerful argument for the public role of religion – certainly not a point directed at the Islamic world, where religion’s role as an arbiter of civic morality and political life is largely unquestioned.
“In our diverse and ever-changing world, religion is more than an internal matter of thought and conscience,” Migliore said. “It has the potential to bind us together as equal and valuable members of the human family. We cannot overlook the role that religion plays in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick and visiting the imprisoned. Nor should we underestimate its power, especially in the midst of conflict and division, to turn our minds to thoughts of peace, to enable enemies to speak to one another, to foster those who were estranged to join hands in friendship, and have nations seek the way to peace together.”
“Religion is a vital force for good, for harmony and for peace among all peoples, especially in troubled times,” he said.
For Western politicians and commentators eager to enlist Pope Benedict and the Holy See in anti-Islamic crusades, seeing in reciprocity a powerful “wedge” issue, Migliore’s address should be a reminder that what the Vatican is truly interested in is not just the right to build churches, but the capacity for churches to build culture. In that regard, the problem is not primarily Islam, but post-Enlightenment Western indifference to the supernatural.
Reciprocity, in other words, is not just for Muslims anymore.
* * *
As a footnote, some Vatican officials, seeking to play down any contrast between Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have suggested in conversations with journalists and diplomats that any new emphasis on “reciprocity” under Benedict is entirely a creation of the media, and that in fact both popes have always said entirely the same thing.
Thankfully, Migliore himself has put an end to such artificial efforts to pretend that papal thinking never evolves. In his address yesterday, he said: “My delegation is increasingly convinced of the indispensable importance of reciprocity, which, by its very nature, is apt to ensure the free exercise of religion in all societies.”
The adverb “increasingly” concedes that there has been an evolution in Vatican emphasis, and Migliore’s explicit use of the term “reciprocity” means the issue is not just a journalistic invention.
(Fr.)David-Maria A. Jaeger,
(Fr.)David-Maria A. Jaeger, ofm:
p.s. Given the actual thrust of the article, perhpas I should specify that my own earlier comment was in reference to the calls for "reciprocity" being addressed to Muslims. In terms of a call for reciprocity being addressed to the "post-Enlightenment West," which John Allen discerns in the speech he is reporting, a previously posted comment rightly wonders what "reciprocity" on our side might actually mean in this case: Surely not "equal time" for "government propaganda" from the pulpit, the comment wisely says. Well, no, of course not. However, if relations with "modern secular societies," and the call for the Church' freedom to be respected to address morally significant issues publicly, are to be cast in terms of "reciprocity" - and given that reciprocity, here too, cannot be meant in the usual sense in international law - one can easily hypothesise what "our" part might do. We could make sure that, in our own discourse, the positions, policies, ideologies, laws that we disagree with, as being incompatible with our beliefs or doctrines, are nonetheless represented fairly, and not gratuitously mischaracterised as being even more unacceptable than they already are, or altogether "demonised" as so evil as to be unworthy of even being perceived accurately. It is in this manner that "we" (believers) can do our part towards assuring civil public conversation (in which to be fully included), and even hope to persuade "the others" that they could listen to what we have to say in a no less serene way, and - ultimately - that reasonable persons should have no motive for impeding us from having our say in the teeming "public square" - or, if you like, in these days of the deified "market" - from taking part in the free, competitive marketplace of ideas.
(Fr.)David-Maria A. Jaeger,
(Fr.)David-Maria A. Jaeger, ofm:
I am increasingly concerned that the call for "reciprocity" not be misinterpreted. It must not be understood in the usual sense in international relations, i.e. that "we" have accorded a discretionary privilege to the other side, a privilege intrinsically conditional upon the other side reciprocating by according the same privilege to "us". In this case, in assuring exercise of their inalienable right to religious freedom to Muslims in the West, "we" have not accorded a privilege, and cannot wish to make it coditional upon anything accorded "us" by anyone. Rather, "we" are acting on our very own values (cf. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights),principles, constitutional requirements (cf., e.g., the "religion clause" of the First Amendment and its analogates elsewhere) and religious doctrine (cf. Vatican II's "Dignitatis humanae"), which are all unconditional, and cannot be affected by anything any "others" do, or do not do, to "us." In other words, "we" are doing this for "us", not for "them". The call for reciprocity is instead to be understood as a morally powerful exhortation, inviting "them" - insistently - to consider the example of "our" own conduct, in the hope that "they" may thereby be persuaded of its rightness for "them" too.
maryrose whelan it would be
maryrose whelan it would be better if the vatican recognized islam's legitimate grievances against the west. we did this for our long anti-jewish history.
Which ones are you thinking
Which ones are you thinking of that haven't already been recognized?
And besides, the point of this article is that the silencing of Christian voices is not just a muslim phenomenon. Although it seems sloppy thinking to use the term "reciprocity" when speaking of the need for religious voices to be given a public hearing in the west. It's not as if I care to have government propaganda given equal time from the pulpit. Who exactly is supposed to reciprocate what to whom?
I, like Father Jaeger, am
I, like Father Jaeger, am concerned about the inefficient use of words like "reciprocity" and even, in another context, "subsidiarity" when dealing with inter-faith relations. The legalism of international relations concepts is a natural and often convenient method of handling the sweeping problems of inter-faith dialogue employing, as they do, notions of transaction and mutual exchange. But this mutuality is very limited.
I am troubled by the conflation of inter-faith and inter-national; and by the confusion of secular pluralism with religious intolerance.
When dealing with others in a geo-political universe of "unkown unknowns" where risk management is the essential driver, competing power determines the boundaries of dialogue. This should not, I believe, form the language of inter-faith dialogue where people of good but different faith try to understand the will of God and the means to make it so. When dealing with secular pluralism, which takes in competing moral and ethical values, competing life arrangements, and the UNFINISHED social contract, I believe one must be careful to avoid imagining this open discourse to be hostile to religious affection or public piety. Secular pluralism creates space but does not privilege religious speech. I do not think one should experience that lack of privilege as hostility. I, personally, think it is a grace and certainly a valuable prudence.
The use of legal language is unfortunate because these distinctions are not provided in that lexicon.
The vocabulary of Christianity seems to me to be so much more GENEROUS than the language of legal trepidation found in terms like reciprocity. We are asked to LOVE our sisters and brothers created by our God, however different they are from us; we are exhorted to have an OPEN HEART when we feel threatened or insecure; we are compelled, I believe, to go way beyond reciprocal justice to embrace a distributive justice that actually COSTS US SOMETHING for the sake of another. And we are even given a scriptural blueprint on how to do this, both personally and institutionally; both locally and internationally.
Here is what this generosity looks like I believe: In our persons and in our institutions we are called to LOVE our neighbor. (The Gospel of Matthew gives us the ethics for this and, not surprisingly, the Great Commission.) This INCLUSIVITY is so much more faithful than mere reciprocity. Only when we learn to practice inclusion at our own table, I believe, can we begin to hope beyond presumption to address international relations or even national relations with and as a moral voice.
It is this profession of HOPE that is, I think, most compelling.
The Letter to the Hebrews is so beautifully clear: “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds..." (10:23-24)
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." (Luke 11:9)