Is the Vatican afraid of Muslims? The question was put to me recently in a conversation with a politician deeply involved in the controversies occasioned by the current war in Iraq.

As a devout Catholic, he was trying to understand what principles tied together the recent “foreign policy” positions of the Holy See. He correctly observed the Holy See was against the 1991 Gulf War, as it is now against the current Iraq war, but favored the military interventions in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

He also correctly dismissed the possibility that U.N. approval means anything important to the Holy See—current protestations to the contrary —given that the United Nations approved Gulf War I and was bypassed entirely in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

He suspected the one issue that united all the positions was that it mostly corresponded to the feeling on the fabled “Islamic Street”; namely, that the Holy See's position was calculated with a view to putting the Church on the side of the mass of Islamic opinion.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano gave credence to this suspicion when he posed his famous rhetorical question: “Whom does it suit to confront a billion Muslims and run the risk of decades of hostility from the Muslim world?”

Other elements of the Vatican's “foreign policy” also give credence to the placate-Islam strategy. The No. 1 issue for the Islamic Street is the Palestinian cause, and so, too, the Holy See devotes disproportionate attention to it. Even a few killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bring forth a papal locution, while other issues of religiously-related violence are left ignored. This reached its lowest level last spring when, during the Palestinian occupation of the Nativity Basilica in Bethlehem, a papal envoy embraced Yasser Arafat.

Meanwhile, the “other issues” left ignored relate to the persecution of Christians throughout the Islamic world. Hardly a peep is heard from the Holy See regarding the hundreds of thousands of Christians who have been killed or sold into slavery in the Sudan. Until he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his attempts to liberate Catholic East Timor from decades of occupation by Muslim Indonesia, Bishop Carlos Belo received far less public support for his cause from the Holy See than was offered to, say, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

So, is the Vatican afraid of Muslims?

The answer is obviously Yes. But that needs some explanation.

There are a billion Muslims in the world, and most are not interested in persecuting Christians. But it is hard to make distinctions between Islam and Islamism, and perceptions can get out of hand, so the Holy See is careful to distance itself from anything that might look like a Christian-Muslim war.

More important, being afraid is not the same as being paranoid or cowardly. Paranoia means being afraid when you should not be. Cow ardice is not doing the right thing for fear of the consequences. I am afraid my interlocutor may have suspected just that on the part of the Vatican — paranoia or cowardice.

Yet it is only the foolish man who is not afraid when there is something to be afraid of. The danger that Christians face in regimes from West Africa to the Arabian Peninsula to South Asia is not to be underplayed. There is legitimate fear that taking a strong, public stand against what will be perceived as “Islam” can only make things worse.

This is not a new problem. Pope Pius XII faced it during World War II, having learned the Dutch bishops' strong criticism of the Nazi regime led to the deportation of Catholics of Jewish heritage to the death camps—including St. Edith Stein. Pope Paul VI faced it the length of his pontificate, avoiding overt criticism of communist regimes in the hopes of gaining more breathing room for Catholics behind the Iron Curtain; salvare il salvabile it was called — saving what could be saved. Paul VI himself confessed it was not a “policy of glory.”

It is also a problem of which I have personal experience. Over the course of my reporting I have come to specific knowledge of Catholics who have been persecuted by Islamist regimes. Their stories need to be told, and a journalist should tell them. I have not written a word on the specifics. Why? Because of the fear that further reprisals may be taken against those same people and those whom they serve.

Does that make me afraid of Muslims? Does it make the Vatican afraid of Muslims?

It does. But there are good reasons to be afraid, and perhaps the best that can be done is just to say so honestly.

Father Raymond J. de Souza is the

Register's Rome correspondent.