Conquest or Collectively Benevolent Progress?

As Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write about for the rest of his life.” We each have unique childhood experiences as a result of our varied upbringings and family lives. For those of us who are blessed with the gift of two loving parents who nurture us in both our physical and spiritual growth, we are afforded an ideal set of circumstances to prepare us for our entry into the real world. And of course, as we were commanded to do by God Himself. We have an obligation to honor our parents as a sign of respect and thanks for their efforts in raising us right. We’ve all heard our parents and grandparents vocalize their hopes that we might someday have the things that they didn’t have. Among those things are education and wisdom. As a result, part of honoring our parents is earning the right—even the obligation—to guide our parents and correct them when we see them veering off course.

Let me make it abundantly clear that I love both of my parents. I owe them everything that I have and I try to always let them know that I feel that way. That does not mean that they are always right, and Lord knows that I’ve never hesitated to let them know—always respectfully—when I feel they are misguided in their opinions or views. It is this very openness that has allowed our relationship to grow stronger as the years have passed. In a similar vein, as a loyal and faithful Catholic, I have always loved and respected the office of the Papacy, as well as the three men who have held that title during my 35 years. I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit inspires the election of popes and so I am ever-aware of the fact that regardless of whether or not I like the political leanings of the man chosen, I defer to the better judgment of the will of God. Still, I will admit openly that I have been critical of all of them when I’ve felt that they have missed the mark in their words or deeds. I feel that all of us as devoted children of God—and as the spiritual children of our pope—reserve the right to voice our opinions, provided they remain educated and in good taste.

There has been no bigger fan of Pope Francis than I. As a Jesuit educated individual, I cherish the fact that he is the first Jesuit pope. I am emphatically positive that he has nothing but good intentions and a heart of gold in his attempts to bring peace and dialogue to a world so increasingly full of hatred and lacking in civility. But like any good son, I must express my displeasure and disagreement with his analogy this week that both Christianity and Islam share a similar lust for conquest. I’m not going to delve into the history of the medieval Church because I feel that it is irrelevant to the specific nature of this debate. What the Holy Father is referring to when he speaks of Islam is the Islam of today’s world. While the church of Christendom might very well have resorted to tactics that we might frown upon today, the long term positive results of those tactics of conquest are very difficult to dispute. They brought enlightenment to a dark world and created the framework for Western civilization. The tactics being employed by radical Islam are not only violently incendiary, they have at their core, an unwavering desire to destroy thousands of years of evolutionary human ingenuity and progress, opting instead to return the world to darkness.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I briefly attended a parish where upon entering the Church one Saturday evening, I noticed that the Vatican flag had been removed from the nave of the Church. After Mass, I asked the pastor what happened to it and his reply has negatively resonated with me for the past 15 years. “I took it out because it reeks of triumphalism and we want to welcome all people, not just Roman Catholics,” he told me. Needless to say, I only returned once or twice before finding a new parish. It saddens me to think that decent, otherwise holy men have embraced this false, somewhat distorted theology. To hear our Holy Father utter that same word—triumphalist—this week brought back some bad memories for me.

I do understand where Pope Francis is coming from and I agree with him that European colonialism had a very sinister side to it. But we cannot view history through a narrow lens. As a history major in college, it was hammered into me by my professors that historical events must never be assessed until at least 50 years has passed. After a few hundred years, I think the experts would agree with me that despite the dark side of European colonialism, the positive ramifications heavily outweigh the negative. To then compare the spread of Christianity with the modern growing scourge of radical Islam is simply an irresponsible analogy. The Irish Troubles aside, which were more of a political, sectarian struggle rather than a religious one, Catholics do not pose a threat for suicide missions to prove their erroneous points. We are not slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians via terrorist attacks. We are not embedding ourselves among civilian populations, lying in wait to strike at the heart of civilized societies. Instead we remain at the forefront of science, education, politics and social progress and we continue to embrace and promote human ingenuity and the advancement of Western civilization. We embrace life at all stages, while others inflict and celebrate death. We offer light to the world, while others seek to bring about darkness.

So in honoring my Holy Father, I simply hope to guide him as he so often guides me. I want him to see that we, his children are loyal and supportive of him. But I also want him to see that we are members of a functioning society that is trying to do right by all people and when he compares us and our attempts to preserve our civilized way of living to those who seek only evil, darkness and destruction, he is painting a warped picture that at best serves only to confuse those who might not know how to interpret his words. At worst, he creates a false moral equivalent—even a sense of validation—in the minds of those bent on evil. The roots of Europe and the Americas are Christian; that is something that should be celebrated and cherished, not apologized for.