Whirling Dervishes at the Vatican - Lyle J. Arnold, Jr. @ Tradition In Action.org

Consequences of Vatican II

Whirling Dervishes at the Vatican

Lyle J. Arnold, Jr.

On June 5, 2007 eight Muslim mystics, commonly known as whirling dervishes, accompanied by 20 musicians, gave a performance at the Vatican's Cancelleria Palace (1). In attendance were 300 guests, including Cardinals, Bishops and other high-level Vatican officials. As part of the New Church's intercultural dialogue with Islam, the performance was organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Turkish Embassy to the Holy See.

The dance of the dervishes is a religious ceremony
that ends with a reading from the Koran

The event commemorated the 800th anniversary of the birth of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (1207-1273), considered one of the most important poets of Sufi mysticism. The Turkish ambassador to the Holy See commented on the excellent relationship between his country and the Holy See after Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey last November. Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, noted that cultural affairs "frequently take an inter-religious dimension."

Rumi is an adherent of Islamic mysticism known as Sufism. The music and dance are to help one "experience unity with God" by spinning – then, by "spinning and spinning some more, ‘the human dissolves in God.’” The basic belief of this cult is that "the essence of Being, Truths and God is devoid of every form and quality ... The chief aim of all Sufis then is to let go of all notions of duality, including a conception of an individual self."

This belief is obviously hostile in the extreme to Catholic truths, and makes one wonder just why Benedict XVI’s Holy See is lending the prestige of the highest office in the world to such performances, especially since these performances "frequently take an inter-religious dimension." Is the Holy See making a statement that the bottomless chasm between Christianity and Islam no longer exists?

Is the Holy See saying that Lepanto is to be forgotten?

It is well known that the Rosary had a powerful influence to achieve the Catholic victory there against the Turks, without any "inter-religious dimension." As Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira notes in a commentary on Lepanto:

"We know that the victory of the Battle of Lepanto was achieved when St. Pius V interrupted a meeting with Cardinals at the Vatican and went to a window and started to pray the rosary. He was deeply concerned about the future of the Church and Christendom that was being decided in those Mediterranean waters. After the Pontiff finished praying the rosary, he returned to the meeting and told the Cardinals that the Catholic fleet had been victorious. That is, he had a revelation while he was praying the rosary. It was the way Our Lady showed him that she linked that victory to his praying the rosary" (2).

By bringing spinning dancers into the Vatican instead of promoting the Rosary, what effect does this have on Catholics, already inured with Progressivism?

Pandering to Islam

At Lepanto, in a five-hour battle on October 7, 1571, the Catholic forces crushed the Ottomans. Experts consider this one of the world's decisive battles, ending the growing Turkish domination of the central and western Mediterranean, ending Islam's threat against Christian Europe. Almost four centuries later, in 1965, the Vatican began its servile pandering to the Turks when the standard captured at Lepanto was returned to them (3). That happened under the pontificate of Paul VI, but John Paul II kept up the ritual of obsequiousness. Let me remind the reader of the treatment Catholics receive in Muslim countries.

I offer just one moving example of a whole family executed for their refusal to abjure the Faith:

"Several years ago, there was a Catholic family of seven brought before the ruling Islamic authorities in Sudan. Their crime: the practice of the Catholic Faith. They were ordered to convert to Islam or be executed. They refused and were executed one by one. Upon orders to convert, each martyr began reciting the Apostles Creed and was shot. The father went first, followed by each of his children, each following the same pattern. Ordered to convert, they simply began to say the Apostle's Creed and were shot for their `crime' against the Islamic State.

"After all the family members except the mother and the youngest child were killed, it was the youngest child's turn to convert or die. The little child started crying. Her mother assured her that everything was all right; they would soon be in Heaven. The child told her mother that she wasn't crying because she was scared; she was crying because she couldn't remember the Apostle's Creed. Her mother told her that it was okay, she could say a `Hail Mary' instead. Her reward for her prayer to the Mother of God was execution. The mother was punished by being allowed to live and contemplate her actions for the rest of her life.

“Half a world away, John Paul II was kissing the Koran, referring to Moslems as `our brothers in the one, true God" (4).

Muslims in Pakistan shout "Death to America," their hatred for the Christian West expressed on their faces

It would seem Pope Ratzinger’s Vatican is following the same line of his predecessors. Is he oblivious to 9/11? To the Catholic obligation to support the war on terror? Does it remember the Islamic motto Maab barg Amrika! [Death to America].

This Islamic cry of hatred should motivate the Vatican do a right oblique, and act as it should, rather than like a toady trying to snuggle up to the Catholic enemy. Instead, what we see is a symbolic act realized at the Vatican on June 5 telling us the Holy See abets Islam, and, ipso facto, its insults to the Founder of the Catholic Church.

1. General bibliography for article: Catholic News Service, June 6, 2007; Istanbul Bulletin, July 2007; Zenit, 6-12-07; Wikipedia, Sufism; The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History, R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, Harper Collins/Pub/NY, 1993, 549.
2. Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira, "Our Lady of the Rosary," TIA website.
3. "The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th Century," crc-internet.org/jan99.htm.
4. "Mr. Tuttle responds to Fr. Brian Harrison," The Remnant, July 31, 2001, page 1.

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Posted September 18, 2007

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