The headline said it all: “Pope Presses Muslims To Tolerate Christians.” Talk about setting the bar low.
But that was the case Pope Benedict XVI was making to Mustafa Ceric, the head of the Bosnia Islamic Community, at a recent Catholic-Muslim forum in Vatican City.
However modest such a goal of mere tolerance might be in so many other contexts, it doesn’t apply here. Certainly not, for example, in Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam’s holiest cities and shrines. In Saudi Arabia non-Muslims still can’t worship in public, Christian symbols such as crosses still can’t be openly displayed and Muslims who convert still face death.
No, mere tolerance of Christians is no modest goal in Saudi Arabia. Nor yet attainable, it still seems.