Egypt: “Charity without the truth is not right!” says Fr. Boulad

Accompanied by his delegation, al-Issa then met with Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Both confirmed that religion and violence are incompatible and that “joint efforts are required to counter” the “phenomenon of fundamentalism.” They agreed to set up a joint permanent committee in the near future. The Muslim World League is a Muslim NGO founded in 1962 in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) by Prince Fayçal with the cooperation of representatives from 22 countries; it works to promote Islam, says its website, which also claims to condemn “all forms of violence and terrorism”.

A Melkite Rebukes Muslim Violence 

Two months ago, Fr. Henri Boulad, SJ, on a visit to France, answered Martial Bild’s questions on TVLibertés. In the interview broadcasted on July 20, they spoke of the Jesuit’s letter entitled "I Accuse," written after the Palm Sunday attacks on April 9, 2017 in two churches in Egypt, and published on April 19, 2017, by the website dreuz.info. The 86-year-old Egyptian and Lebanese Greek Melkite Jesuit, born in Alexandria, lives in Egypt and has served as superior of the Jesuits in Alexandria, regional superior of the Jesuits in Egypt, professor of theology in Cairo, director of Caritas-Egypt and vice-president of Caritas Internationalis for the Middle East and North Africa. The Boulad family is an old Syrian Melkite Catholic family from Damascus. Here are some of his remarks from this summer, along with some extracts from "I Accuse."

I have decided to denounce this terrorism at its source: the principal source of radicalization in the world is the al-Azhar University,” he explained, denouncing as the source of this deadly ideology the university of Cairo whose teaching is the official teaching of Islam. And he added: “I accuse Islam but I do not accuse the Muslims,” who are the first victims of Islam.

 

I accuse Islam that by its nature is both political and radical. As I wrote more than twenty-five years ago, Islamism is Islam exposed, with all its logic and rigor. It is the bearer of a societal program to establish a world caliphate founded on Sharia law, the only legitimate law because it is divine. It is a global, all-embracing program, complete, total, and totalitarian.

 

I accuse of deliberate lie those who pretend that the atrocities committed by the Muslims “have nothing to do with Islam.” These crimes are perpetrated in the name of the Koran and its injunctions. The simple fact that the call to prayer and the incitement to murder the infidels are both preceded by the same cry, Allah-ou akbar (God is the greatest) is highly significant.

 

I accuse the Azhar, that is supposed to incarnate moderate Islam, of feeding a spirit of fanaticism, intolerance and hatred in the hearts of the thousands of students and imams who come from all over the world to be formed in its institutions. In so doing it has become one of the principal sources of terrorism in the world.

 

Against a False Compromise with Islam 

During the interview, Fr. Boulad did not hesitate to speak out against the “movement started by the Vatican II decree Nostra Aetate (October 28, 1965), which began a dialogue that sought to be open, welcoming and comprehensive with the Muslims.” And he declared:

In 50 years, we have not taken one step forward…and we are at a dead-end. The conclusion of the dialogue with a sheik of al-Azhar was that “all Christians will go to hell.” Nothing changes and nothing has changed for eleven centuries, he insisted. “What I am asking for is a dialogue based on the truth; charity without the truth is not right!

I accuse the Muslim scholars of the 10th century of promulgating now-irreversible decrees that led Islam into today’s impasse. The first of these decrees, the decree of the abrogator and the abrogated, consisted in giving the Medinese surahs, full of violence and intolerance, primacy over the Meccan surahs that are invitations to peace and concord.

 

In order to make this decree irreversible, two other decrees were promulgated: one declared that the Koran is “the uncreated word of Allah,” and therefore immutable: the other forbade any further effort of interpretation by declaring that “the door of ijtihad (effort of reflection) is definitively closed”. The consecration of these decisions fossilized Muslim thought and contributed to maintaining the Muslim countries in a state of retardation and chronic stagnation.

 

I accuse the Catholic Church of pursuing with Islam a “dialogue” based on complacency, compromise and duplicity. After over fifty years of one-sided initiatives, this monologue is at a standstill today. By giving in to the “politically correct,” and on the pretext of not offending the Muslims in the hope of “living together,” we carefully avoid the thorny and vital questions. Any true dialogue begins with the truth.

 

Fr. Henri Boulad concluded by explaining,

I have written two letters to Pope Francis on Islam and the massive immigration he is encouraging in Europe. The first letter was handed to him directly by Cardinal Schönborn. The second was translated into Spanish and handed to him by a friend, an Egyptian bishop, three months ago during his ad limina visit. He has not answered me! I am his brother in religion, his elder brother who has something to tell him…I offered to meet, to dialogue. I have been turned down.