More on Benedict's European Audience

I heard the same NPR story as Lisa about reactions in the European leftish press to Benedict's speech.  Those reactions fit, I think, with a greater sense of alarm in Europe than in America about the possibility of Muslim domination there (because of immigration, low non-Muslim birthrates, past riots, the home-grown terrorists, etc.).  While Le Monde doesn't share the Pope's diagnosis or prescription, it nevertheless shares the sense of worry.  (In noting this, I'm not disagreeing with the Pope's suggestion that Le Monde can't generate a satisfactory answer to the problem.)  Americans worry about terrorist attacks here, but not about the overall influence of radical or disaffected Islamists on the culture.  I got this sense of difference in attitudes during my week teaching European students at the University of Siena Law and Religion Summer School in August (a wonderful time, by the way; ah bella Tuscany!).  Even for those many Europeans who think that restriction of Islamic practices (like the headscarves in schools) is wrong and counterproductive, there is the sense that radical Islam is a central problem for the culture, including for religious freedom, whereas here the religious-freedom problems remain (for now) occasional and marginal.

Tom