Blog

With this ring, you shan’t he wed


Can an attempt to promote tolerance actually be based on intolerance? This is the question many people must be asking after the Vatican warned Catholic women not to marry Muslim men because such men don’t respect women.

While there is much to be said for encouraging other religions to be more tolerant of their own people, the Vatican’s proclamation is indeed troubling. Not only is the Pope’s announcement based on a stereotype that isn’t true of all Muslim men, but by universalizing what it means to be Muslim (and male), the Vatican risks widening the rift between Judeo-Christian ethics and those of other religions. In fact, the Vatican’s proclamation sounds an awful lot like the rhetoric we heard the Bush administration use immediately after 9/11 as it sought to justify the invasion of Afghanistan in the name of liberation of, amongst other things, Afghani women from their “backward” traditions.

Am I saying that oppression of women is a good thing, or that no Muslim sects (or Jewish sects, or Christian sects, or almost every other religion imaginable) do oppress women? No. But you wouldn’t know that by listening to the Vatican’s proclamation, and that is what is so frightening about it.

Remember the intense ethnic profiling experienced by Arabs in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001? Remember the hate crimes that befell men and women with brown skin — regardless of their beliefs and origins — because the media and American politicans somehow convinced many people that it was in fact Islam that led 19 (or was it 21?) men to fly planes into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and a field in Pennsylvania? The logic was remarkably similar for it too was a logic based on stereotyping an entire religion based on the actions of a small group of men who did indeed claim to be Muslim, but whose beliefs were not consistent with or representative of all — or even most — people of the Muslim faith.

I also find the Vatican’s paternalism toward women in this statement to be a bit intriguing. If the Vatican does in fact believe that Islam is an oppressive religion and that its followers are raised to be intolerant, then why just instruct Catholic women not to marry Muslim men? Sure, the Vatican may assert that if a Catholic man were to marry a Muslim woman, he would afford her the respect that men of her own religion don’t. But he would still be marrying into her family, which likely includes Muslim men. And if he and she were to have children together, how would they raise them so that they wouldn’t practice alleged intolerance? In other words, why is it that Catholic men can “save” Muslim women, while Catholic women need to be “saved” by the Vatican? And who is to say that someone of the Muslim faith couldn’t provide a stable relationship, a sense of belonging even, for a Catholic woman?

Finally, what is also intriguing about the Vatican’s statement is that it relies on the assumption that Catholicism doesn’t oppress women and that Catholicism is tolerant of difference. But I’ve had friends who couldn’t be married by a Catholic priest unless they vowed not to ever use birth control, which many — even most — progressives consider a product of the cultural revolution of the 1960s that was essential to women’s liberation. Do all Catholics favor abstinence and oppose abortion? No. But by the same rationale, perhaps the Vatican should recognize that tolerance cannot be bred by stereotyping the beliefs and practices of an entire class of people based upon the beliefs and practices of a mere segment of that population.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: