Religious freedom ‘essential’, Muslims told

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has said that Muslims who come to Europe must accept that religious freedom and freedom of conscience are “non-negotiable key values” in a democracy.

Unlike Christianity and Judaism, Islam had not experienced the Enlightenment and therefore had a “certain amount of catching up to do”, the cardinal pointed out in an interview as guest of the week in the Sunday press hour on Austrian state television on 13 March.

“The need to catch up is particularly clear when it comes to Muslims’ perception of women,” he observed, a fact he had personally witnessed on a visit to Iran. “We must make these differences quite clear to Muslims when they come here. An absence of religious freedom as in Saudi Arabia is out of the question here. Muslims who come here must understand and accept that,” he emphasised.

While he continued to think highly of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open-door refugee policy, he could understand Austria’s decision to close its borders.

This had been an emergency measure as a limit had been reached, Cardinal Schönborn (pictured right) said. He could also understand the fear that there might be jihadists among the large numbers of young male refugees coming to Europe, he said.

The best solution to date, he said, was the UNHCR Resettlement Programme, which brought particularly vulnerable families directly to Europe from the refugee camps in the Near East. One and a half thousand Syrians had been brought to Austria by means of this “humanitarian corridor” last year and were well integrated. Most of them were Christians, accepted not because they were Christians, but because Christians were persecuted for their faith in the camps.

The cardinal confirmed that growing numbers of Muslims were converting to Christianity. More than half of adult converts in the Archdiocese of Vienna had converted from Islam. “I myself have baptised many Muslims,” Schönborn said, “but we are very careful indeed to check that the conversions are genuine”. All adult would-be converts had to be a catechumen for at least a year.

Schönborn said while the Pope faced “genuine opposition in parts of the Church, not only the Curia, he is excellent at coping with his opponents as he includes them”.

n Pope Francis is to wash the feet of 12 migrants at a migrants’ centre in Rome on Holy Thursday, a gesture  likely to be interpreted as a sign for Europe to make greater efforts to welcome refugees.