Sandro Magister, "Professor Ratzinger goes back to school. After Islam last year, Darwin topic this year" (2006)

www.chiesa Roma, August 6, 2006; http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=75381&eng=y

Professor Ratzinger goes back to school. After Islam last year, Darwin topic this year

Evolution will be the focus of the upcoming seminar between the pope and his former students in Castel Gandolfo. Meanwhile, Jesuit scholar Christian W. Troll has updated his analysis of progressive Muslim thinkers
> by Sandro Magister
>

> ROMA, August 2, 2006 – This year’s Ratzinger-Schülerkreis seminar will focus on "Schöpfung und Evolution", creation and evolution. The private meeting is set for Saturday, September 2, and Sunday, September 3, at the Pontifical Villa in the pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo (see photo).
> The Ratzinger-Schülerkreis, that is the ‘Ratzinger Students’ Circle’, brings together once a year the old theology professor, now pope Benedict XVI, and his former students to discuss a new topic every year.
> The first such meeting was held when Joseph Ratzinger was still a professor in Regensburg. Once he became archbishop of Munich, his students asked him to continue and he accepted. When he moved to Rome to take up the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the annual event continued. Typically, meetings were held at a monastery over a weekend. When the 2004 meeting ended, participants left already knowing the following year’s subject: the concept of God in Islam.
> When in the spring of 2005, cardinal Ratzinger became pope, his former students thought that their annual tradition would stop, but were proved wrong. Thanks to Benedict XVI, the annual meeting was held last year and so it will this year.
> Next September 2, professor Peter Schuster, president of the Österreichichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Austrian academy of sciences, and cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna and theologian, will open the discussion on creation and evolution. Among the participants, there will also be Jesuit Paul Erbrich, professor of the philosophy of nature in Munich, and Robert Spaemann, professor of political philosophy and one of Germany’s foremost experts on modernity.
> On July 7, 2005, “The New York Times” ran an article by cardinal Schönborn on the same topic which was read around the world.
> But the subject is not foreign to Benedict XVI either. As pontiff he touched upon it last April 6 when he addressed young people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for World Youth Day. “Science,” he said in answering a question, “presupposes the trustworthy, intelligent structure of matter, the ‘design’ of creation.”
> In preparation of the coming seminar, the members of the Ratzinger-Schülerkreis can also find insight in an article that appears in the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” a Jesuit journal published in Rome under the control and with the authorization of the Vatican secretariat of state.
> In his article “L’evoluzione dei viventi: il fatto e i meccanismi [The Evolution of Living Things: Facts and Mechanisms],” Jesuit Giuseppe De Rosa looks at the debate among scientists over Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. In his conclusion, he writes that “while most scientists accept natural selection and random genetic mutation as valid processes, others who also accept evolution deny that the mechanisms identified so far are sufficient to explain it.”
> * * *
> But “La Civiltà Cattolica” has crossed paths with the Ratzinger-Schülerkreis in another way as well, in an article on Islam it published in its penultimate issue that deals with a topic the pope and his former students had discussed in their September 2005 meeting. 
> German Jesuit Christian W. Troll, professor of islamic studies at the Sankt Georgen faculty of theology in Frankfurt, wrote the article. He also opened the discussions in last year’s Ratzinger-Schülerkreis seminar. 
> The 2005 seminar caused a considerable stir, especially in the United States after an account by one of the participants, US Jesuit Joseph Fessio, gave the impression that for Benedict XVI Islam and democracy were incompatible. 
> Things were not as reported however. Both Father Fessio and professor Troll, as well as Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian-born Jesuit expert on Islam who attended the seminar, and Ratzinger-Schülerkreis coordinator, professor Stephan Horn, made it clear that while the pope thought that a positive encounter between Islam and modernity was difficult, he also believed that it was not altogether impossible. 
> In his “La Civiltà Cattolica” article, professor Troll takes up exactly this point. In it he looks at what is happening in Islam and illustrates how some Muslims are trying to reconcile modernity and the Qur'an. 
> The article in Italian, entitled “Il pensiero progressista nell’islam contemporaneo. Un profilo critico [Progressive Thinking in Contemporary Islam: A Critical Profile],” appeared in the July 15, 2006, issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” pp. 123-135. 
> Here are its main passages. It must be said that most Muslim thinkers quoted in the article either live and work in the West, or have had to flee their respective countries. 
> Progressive Thinking in Contemporary Islam
> by Christian W. Troll S.I.
> 
> Three main trends seem to be emerging in the Islamic world. Beside cultural Islam, a form of Islam we might call with some reservations traditional Islam, we find an “Islamist” Islam, one that is literalist in its approach to the scriptures. And in addition to these two, there is another Islam, one that is open to new interpretations, one based on the spirit of the text. 
> Today the Islam based on the spirit of the text is not in the foreground, [...] but its proponents are making enormous efforts, so much so that it is not uncommon to see them overlap with the goals and views of large segments of Muslim societies. 
> It is true that this Islam has still left many things unsaid and has purposefully dealt with others in a vague manner – the more so since its proponents fear attacks and accusations by “Islamists” or anti-democratic potentates who use cultural or traditional Islam to leave the status quo unchanged. 
> Yet on the long run the future might belong to the Islam based on the spirit of the text because it flexibly copes with the challenges of modernity without breaking with at least some past views of Islam. [...] More and more Muslims are converting to a critical view of religion, one that is less and less conditioned by its environment but is instead founded on a personal and responsible acceptance of the faith. 
> Within this newly-interpreted Islam we see to a great extent the rise of a new Islamic way of thinking. [...] The representatives of this progressive trend view modernity from a different perspective than that of past reformers, i.e. those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [...] Like Rachid Benzine, they believe that “at the core of modernity is the idea that the individual acts and thinks freely, that his experiments can penetrate nature’s mysteries, and that through his own efforts and those of others a new and better world can be built.” 
> In short, for the standard bearers of this new progressive trend modernity must be viewed with a critical eye and they must steadfastly rely on their own conscience and individual freedom. “We need to freely look at our religious heritage. This is the first condition for religious renewal,” wrote Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd in a 2002 article published in “Al-Ahram.” [...] 
> In general, such an appeal requires freedom, but also a social system that allows the mind to run free rather than oppressed it through violence. [...] 
> Subjecting religion and religious discourse to an open scientific critique is something new for Muslim societies. For this reason, the label of apostate has been constantly pinned on the members of this new movement of ideas. Not only are they unwelcome to the establishment because of how they deal with specific theological issues, but also because they are always involved in current issues like the relationship between state and religion in Muslim societies or the interferences between Shari’a and positive law in modern states – above all as they relate to human rights and women’s emancipation – as well as concrete social issues such as the Islamic view on faith and social justice, or on whether Islam has its own social or political system. 
> It would be a great mistake to believe as the adversaries of free thinking do that its proponents have uncritically adopted a Western perspective or that they have blindly and uncritically fallen prey to the West and its value system. Modernity for progressive Muslims does not mean the same thing as it does in the West; rather it refers to the critical light that modern knowledge can shed. This way, by studying Islam and ways to interpret the scriptures, progressive thinkers can favor those broader and more critical perspectives typical of modern social sciences like linguistics, semiotics, comparative religion and especially sociology. [...] 
> Among the many in the forefront of this trend a few stand out; thinkers like Mohammed Arkoun (AlgeriaFrance), Leila Babès (Algeria/France), Rachid Benzine (Morocco/ France), Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (Egypt/Netherlands), Abdou Filali-Ansary (Morocco), Abdelmajid Sharfi (Tunisia), Farid Esack (South Africa/USA), Ebrahim Moosa (USA), Ashgar Ali Engineer (India), Abdullahi an-Naim (Sudan/US), Amina Wadud (USA), Fatima Mernissi (Morocco), Khaled Abou El Fadl (USA), Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Farish Noor (Malaysia), Ömer Özsoy (Turkey). [...]
> Proportionately, these progressive scholars are more likely to be trained social scientists compared to the “Islamists”, who tend to have a background in the natural and applied sciences. [...]
> In practical terms, all progressive thinkers are trying to define the place of religion in a world that, despite appearances to the contrary, is becoming increasingly secular. Indeed the process of secularization has come to the Islamic world unannounced and with such speed that it has left it unprepared to assimilate it from within. Given the circumstances, Muslim thinkers have had to face the challenges this process entails directly – they have had to find ways to reconcile religion, something quintessentially seen as unchangeable, with change itself. [...]
> For progressive thinkers, only a fresh, prejudice-free reading of Islam’s fundamental texts can allow its essential values to meet the needs of the modern world in all its varying forms. Only through this kind of reinterpretation can Islamic Law and legal system become more open; only through it can Islam’s political ideas become reconciled to democracy with the necessary spiritual and intellectual coherence and conviction that would allow for equality between men and women. And all this might come about with a clear conscience vis-à-vis Islam and the Sunnah and in an open dialogue with critical approaches to the modern world. [...]
> Progressive thinkers are today tackling issues relating to the Qur'an that modern perspectives and scientific approaches are explicitly raising. [...]
> Their answers are informed by historical-critical methods which [...] try to analyze a text within its original context. Thus, the Qur'an can be seen as part of history. The Qur'an might be God’s Word, but its words are laden with history. As Rachid Benzine put it, its historical nature is “incarnated” in its textuality, i.e. in the nature and structure of the written text. [...]
> According to this new approach, while the Qur'an certainly conveys eternal truths, the way it transmits them is culturally specific and not universally applicable for it reflects the culture of 7th and 8th century Hejazi Arabs. [...]
> Linguistics and literary criticism are used today to read and understand the Qur'an, in particular by many new thinkers like Egypt’s Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a hermeneutics scholar born in 1943 who currently teaches in Leiden, the Netherlands. [...]
> It is self-evident that the Qur'an, or any other text, can only be viewed through culturally-specific lenses, those of the reader or listener. [...] The act of reading is always one of re-reading, [...] so much so that reading the Qur'an cannot be done from a single perspective. No one reading can claim to be the one and only, true for all times.
> For progressive Muslim thinkers, scientific research and literary analysis are not in contradiction with approaches informed by religious belief and faith in the Qur'an. On the contrary [...] they are meant for and can contribute to understanding the Qur'an’s deepest sense and therefore the truest religious meaning it can convey today. [...]
> Perhaps this might open the way to another way of experiencing faith, one that is more strongly held, and more open to issues and problems that can arise, proud of the Qur'an’s wider horizons, but also conscious of the fact that this greater depth allows the believer to grow in humility and in openness to others. [...]
> However the case may be, whether openly expressed or not, two questions dog modern progressive Muslim thinkers. The first one is: “How does God speak?” The second one is: “Who speaks in God’s name?” [...]
> A problem inevitably arises the moment the bases of the Qur'an are no longer considered untouchable and binding but are instead open to personal interpretations based on the spirit of the text however defined or justified. What was hitherto viewed in a relative unambiguous ways, or was informed by the earliest interpretation formulated during Islam’s first two centuries, is now open to a self-renewing process of legitimation in which new exegeses come into focus. Likewise, it is impossible not to ask how far and by what means the Qur'an, and consequently God’s revelation in our times, can be truly understood.
> Furthermore, from a social and political point of view the issue of consensus (igma’) was and is central to understanding Islam. Does Islam have a theologically-based theory of what an Islamic society (Ummah) ought to be? That is to say, does it have a theory of the Ummah? And what would be that theory’s role and how would that role be played out insofar as the theory tried to explain God’s revelation in matters of faith and ethics? And, if necessary, how could that theory be upheld and justified? Ultimately, is it not true that both those who uphold the traditional view with regard to the prophet’s authority or to God’s words of which the prophet was the messenger, and those who have serious doubts about it are ultimately involved in a struggle over who can rightfully claim the authority that were vested in the prophet and the scriptures that were revealed through him?
> __________
> 
> The Jesuit journal in Rome that published professor Christian W. Troll’s article: 
> <a href="http:/www.laciviltacattolica.it/">> “La Civiltà Cattolica”
> __________
> 
> In addition to Troll’s list of Muslim intellectuals, there is Algerian-born Khaled Fouad Allam. A naturalized Italian citizen, he teaches islamic studies at the universities of Trieste and Urbino, and is an editorial writer for the Italian liberal daily “la Repubblica”. 
> To know more about Khaled Fouad Allam, see on this site: 
> <a href="http:/www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=6976&eng=y">> If Europe Denies Itself: A Letter to Europeans from a European Muslim (30.9.2003)
> __________
> 
> To know more about last year’s Ratzinger-Schülerkreis seminar and the controversy it created, go to: 
> <a href="http:/www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=45084&eng=y">> Islam and Democracy, a Secret Meeting at Castel Gandolfo (23.1.2006)
> > Castel Gandolfo Revisited: The Jesuits Come to the Pope’s Defense (26.1.2006)
> __________
> 
> English translation by Pierre Rossi. 
> For the latest articles go to the English home page: 
> <a href="http:/www.chiesa.espressonline.it/index.jsp?eng=y">> www.chiesa.espressonline.it
> Sandro Magister’s e-mail address is [email protected]
> __________
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Sandro Magister, "Professor Ratzinger goes back to school. After Islam last year, Darwin topic this year" (2006)

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