Australian Cardinal advises Catholics to read Koran

Cardinal George Pell has said that it is vital to "read this sacred text of the Muslims, because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives - at least." The message, from a speech delivered in the US, was published in an article in the Brisbane Courier-Mail and reported by Church Resources. The Cardinal's speech, which was dated 7 February, appeared this week on the Sydney Archdiocesan website. Cardinal Pell said the totalitarian nature of Islamist ideology, and the brutality and rigidity of Islamist rule in Afghanistan under the Taliban, would prove unsustainable, like Nazism and Communism, because of the enormous toll they exacted on human life and creativity. But on the pessimistic side, in reading the Koran Cardinal Pell began noting down the calls to violence. "There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages," he said. "It is easy for us to tell Muslims that they must look to themselves and find ways of reinterpreting their beliefs and remaking their societies. "Exactly the same thing can and needs to be said to us." Source: Church Resources