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Nostra Aetate’: a Brief History of the Development of Catholic Church Teaching on Muslims and the Religion of Islam from 1883 to 1965

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Nostra Aetate’: a Brief History of the Development of Catholic Church Teaching on Muslims and the Religion of Islam from 1883 to 1965 ARAM, 20 (2008) 299-316. doi: 10.2143/ARAM.20.0.2033134A. UNSWORTH 299 LOUIS MASSIGNON, THE HOLY SEE AND THE ECCLESIAL TRANSITION FROM ‘IMMORTALE DEI’ TO ‘NOSTRA AETATE’: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHING ON MUSLIMS AND THE RELIGION OF ISLAM FROM 1883 TO 1965 Dr. ANDREW UNSWORTH (Heythrop College, University of London) INTRODUCTION The documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) presented a positive evaluation of Muslims and the religion of Islam.1 As Robert Caspar reflects; when in 1965 the first sentence of Nostra Aetate art.3 says: ‘Upon the Moslems, too, the Church looks with esteem’, it is significant in that it is, ‘the first time in the history of the Church that the Magisterium, in solemn Council, advocates an attitude of esteem and of friendship towards Islam and the Mus- lims’.2 This institutional change of heart and mind was precipitated, largely, by the great Catholic scholar Louis Massignon (1883-1962); French intellectual, Churchman, social activist, and latterly Catholic priest of the Melkite (Arabic- speaking) Rite. Although Massignon died the same year that Vatican II began the influence of Massignon and his associates was strongly in evidence. Two short statements made by the Council refer to the Muslims, and both Lumen Gentium 16 and Nostra Aetate 3 owe much of their content to his intellectual and spiritual legacy.3 Massignon had early associations with Charles de Foucauld whose irenic approach to the Muslims was a considerable influence on the young Mas- 1 In this paper I will refer to the Second Vatican Council as ‘Vatican II’. 2 Robert Caspar, ‘Islam according to Vatican II: On the Tenth Anniversary of Nostra Aetate’, Encounter: Documents for Muslim-Christian Understanding, 21, (Rome: Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, January 1976), p. 3. Henceforth the Pontifical Institute will be re- ferred to as P.I.S.A.I. See also Georges C. Anawati’s brief commentary, ‘Excursus on Islam’, Simon and Erika Young, trans., in Herbert Vorgrimler, (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II: Volume III, (London: Burns and Oates, 1969), pp. 151-154. 3 Mary Louise Gude, Louis Massignon: The Crucible of Compassion, (Notre Dame: Univer- sity Press, 1996); David E. Burrell, ‘Mind and Heart at the Service of Muslim-Christian Under- standing: Louis Massignon as Trail Blazer’, in The Muslim World, LXXXVIII, Nos. 3-4, July- October, 1998, pp. 268-278. 07-0398_Aram20_17_Unsworth 299 09-16-2008, 17:24 300 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC CHURCH signon, and a lifelong inspiration for his life and work.4 Massignon in turn ex- erted a great personal and academic influence on many friends and colleagues who became committed to a positive reappraisal of the relationship between Christians and Muslims. These ‘disciples’ have worked at theological, reli- gious, spiritual, political, diplomatic and socio-cultural levels to build better relationships, both locally and globally, between the adherents of the two world faiths.5 Since the Council this has given rise to an extensive number of magisterial interventions in the area of Christian-Muslim relations.6 In this paper I will attempt to suggest how, and in what ways, Massignon’s life and work were influential on Vatican II, but also on contemporary Catholi- cism’s attitude towards the religion of Islam, and its adherents. BACKGROUND The encounter between the Catholic Church and Islam has a long history and has given rise to a well developed tradition of theological reflection.7 The history of the teaching documents, which refer to Muslims and Islam produced by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, are representative of a particular type of discourse, that is, they contain officially sanctioned and authoritative teaching. According to the Church’s understanding, these documents are the most important form of theological and religious discourse in which the Church seeks to propose and interpret the deposit of faith, and to guide and exhort the faithful. On many occasions these have reflected not only the pre- vailing theological opinions of the Magisterium of the Church, but also the prevailing socio-cultural attitudes of its members. In these texts produced by the Magisterium the Church has interpreted and described Muslims and their religious beliefs, values and practices in various ways relative to the time. Teaching documents have contained accurate infor- 4 Jean-Jacques Antier, Charles De Foucauld (Charles of Jesus), Julia Shirek Smith, trans., (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999) [original French edition (Librairie Academique Perrin, 1997)]. 5 The most significant of these associates, as far as Massignon’s influence on the Council was concerned, were Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI (who had known Massignon since the 1920’s), Georges Anawati, an Egyptian-born Dominican (since the late 1930’s), who, along with the White Father Robert Caspar was to compose the sections of the Council documents which refer to Islam; Patriarch Maximos Saigh IV, the Melkite Patriarch (since the mid 1940’s), and Archbishop Joseph Descuffi, Latin Rite Metropolitan of Smyrna, Turkey (since the early 1950’s). 6 See the documentation contained in Francesco Gioia, ed., Pontifical Council for Inter- religious Dialogue: Interreligious Dialogue – The Official Teaching of the Catholic Church (1963-1995), (Boston: Pauline Press, 1994). 7 Ovey N. Muhammed SJ, Muslim-Christian Relations: Past, Present, Future, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999). 07-0398_Aram20_17_Unsworth 300 09-16-2008, 17:24 A. UNSWORTH 301 mation about dogmatic differences, but have also contained inappropriate judgments about the Muslim other based on distorted images, and one would have to admit that there has been much misrepresentation and intolerance on both sides.8 LEO XIII AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY OFFICIAL CATHOLIC VIEW OF ISLAM Louis Massignon was born in 1883. At this time the teaching documents of the Catholic Church reflect a somewhat negative image with regard to Islam and the Muslim, although the documents are not polemical in the manner of earlier times.9 Such an image of Islam was familiar to the young Massignon. In 1885, two years after his birth, Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Immortale Dei asserted that the Christian European nations had, once and for all, …victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest [quod Maometha- norum incursiones victrix propulsavit] retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering…in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertak- ings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.10 Massignon grew up during a time of European Christian ascendancy and self-assurance. France was one of the largest colonial powers in the world dur- ing this time. Much of Muslim North Africa was under French political and economic influence, and Massignon himself would ultimately become one of France’s colonial ‘agents’. Ironically, Massignon’s exposure to and subsequent interest in Islam was the very consequence of this sitz im leben. During the Leonine papacy, and the subsequent pontificates of the early twentieth century, up until the reign of Pius XII, several further references were made to the Muslims in similar vein. These documents demonstrate on the one hand a time-honoured distrust of Muslims and the religion of Islam 8 Hugh Goddard, A History of Christian-Muslim Relations, (Edinburgh: University Press, 2000); Rollin Armour Sr., Islam, Christianity and the West: A Troubled History, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002). 9 For instance during the period of the Mediaeval Church Councils. See Norman Tanner SJ, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils – Volume I (Nicaea I to Lateran V), (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990). 10 Latin text: Acta Leonis, Volume V, (Rome: Typographia Vaticana), p. 132 [henceforth ref- erences to these original Latin documents in the Acta will be made in an abbreviated standard form showing volume and page numbers]. English text: Claudia Carlen (ed.), The Papal Encycli- cals: Volume II, (U.S.A.: Pierian Press, 1990), p. 112 [from this point I will make references to Carlen’s five volume collection of English translations of the papal encyclicals from 1740 until 1981- showing in an abbreviated standard form the volume and page numbers]. Leo reigned from 1878 until 1903. 07-0398_Aram20_17_Unsworth 301 09-16-2008, 17:24 302 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC CHURCH (invariably epitomized by the Ottoman Turks). On the other hand there was willingness, when the necessity arose, to work with Muslim rulers in a prudent fashion, for the sake of safeguarding the interests of Christian minorities in Is- lamic lands, but beyond this there was something of a theological and cultural stalemate.11 The threat posed by ‘the errors of Mohammed [Muhumetis errorum]’12 from a doctrinal point of view, were clearly in sight. Adherence to Islam entailed a denial of the central Christian dogmas of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Redemption; and the ‘God of Muhammad’ was not generally considered to be the one true God. The Islamic Weltanschauung was, in terms of its moral val- ues, and in many important religious respects, regarded as a dangerous diver- gence from orthodox Christianity. Leo’s encyclical In Plurimis, in 1888, condemned the Muslim-run slave trade, endemic and aggressive at the time, particularly in Africa. This docu- ment encapsulated a commonly held Christian view of Islam as decadent and barbarous. In this document Leo also alludes to ‘the religious rites of Mahomet [sacra Mahometi]’13 (i.e. the ritual prayers or salat, the Meccan Hajj and sawm or fasting during the month of Ramadan).
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