Belgium: Cardinal Danneels and Islam

Cardinal Godfried Danneels is looking forward to the rise of a European Islam which "would have gone through its French Revolution". In an interview granted on March 9 to the Belgian daily La dernière Heure, the primate of Belgium said he fear the monolithic character of this religion which inclines towards fundamentalism.

Questioned on the recent affair of the cartoons of Mohammed, Cardinal Danneels declared:

"Islam is indeed a religion in which everything is monolithic: you speak Arabic, the religion is the same, and so are the customs of living, marriages…Finally, it is either everything or nothing. With us, there is rather a rupture of this monolithic character: I can speak French, be a Catholic, not be a capitalist, and like Dostoyevsky. Such a patchwork does not exist in Islam. Can this monolithic character be a danger? Yes, just as it was with Christianity several centuries ago. But now we have learnt the separation of Church and State. Such is not the case with Islam: social life is entirely under control, at least for the sectarians. This Islam will be turning into fundamentalism, if we are not careful about it. But, in other more intellectual circles, another Islam has already made the separation between religion and social life, and between religion and the State. I call this an Islam that has gone through its French Revolution. I hope that European Islam will go through it. Islam is advocating true values, like the idea of a transcendent God, frequent and regular religious practice, social cohesion and also the fact that, for them, religion may also intervene in social life. If it does so without overstepping on what belongs to the State, this is no problem.