Cardinal Ranjith: Islam’s Rise Should Prompt Christian Soul-Searching, Not Confrontation

A leading cardinal who was considered a strong candidate to be pope last year has said he is not surprised by the rise of political Islam in the West, as many Christians have adopted secular values, thereby creating a contradiction between belief and practice, especially in the public square.

In a Nov. 6 interview with the French publication Tribune Chrétienne, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, 78, said the growth in Islam “is not at all surprising and does not necessarily result from a deliberate plan,” but rather is a “natural process.”

The cardinal archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, who has long sought interreligious harmony in his native country, said Christian societies are gradually declining because they are “absorbing secular values” and basing political choices on them.

Other religions, such as Islam, “do not share the same fascination with secularism,” but rather “base their life choices on their beliefs, which is right and natural,” he said. The religious composition of Sri Lanka is about 70% Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim and 7% Christian (predominantly Catholic), according to the most recent survey available.

“Secular society is dualistic, because it holds that a person can adhere to a religion without being required to put the values that stem from it into practice in the public sphere,” Cardinal Ranjith observed. He added that it is a concept that forces believers to act contrary to their deepest spiritual convictions and makes them “lead a ‘double life,’” something Islam and other religions do not accept as “realistic or honest,” adding that this “shows us, as Christians, just how ‘hypocritical’ we have become.”

So rather than confronting Islam and other religions or imposing secular rules on them, the cardinal believes the faithful should learn from their commitment to living consistently with their beliefs and recover that integrity themselves. Church leaders and their flocks, he told Tribune Chrétienne, should respond by reflecting and acknowledging “the erroneous choices made in the past that have led to this sad situation” and then courageously proclaim the Gospel.

Cardinal Ranjith, who grew to prominence during Pope St. John Paul II’s pontificate, has served in a variety of important roles, including apostolic nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor. Pope Benedict XVI appointed him secretary to the then Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2005, before nominating him archbishop of Colombo in 2009. He received international attention in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday in 2019 that killed 270 people and injured more than 500. In Tribune Chrétienne, he said he suspects the government was complicit in the attacks, aiming to have a nationalist candidate elected president by sparking a “wave of anti-Muslim anger.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the cardinal called on Church leaders to recognize signs of Catholic renewal in Europe as a “gift from God” and to do all in their power to “restore a spiritual dimension to the lives of their faithful.”

He pointed to young people’s enthusiastic response to Pope Leo XIV’s visits to France and Spain this year as evidence of a longing for a “more humane, more spiritual, and authentically transformed world.”

Young people are being drawn to a “more spiritual vision of life” due to the realization that true happiness cannot come from economic prosperity and consumerism, he observed. The Sri Lankan cardinal also noted that these signs of revival are emerging after decades of “a rapid and tragic process of de-Christianization” on a continent that abandoned “its own spiritual and liturgical heritage.”

He linked the spread of secularism partly to a “theological revolution that swept away the solid pillars of Catholic theology” and argued that changes since World War II weakened “forms of worship, moral principles, and hierarchical structure.”

At the same time, he said a secularist movement engendered individualism and hedonism as well as a demographic crisis and a rise in extremism, leading to a “loss of the value and nobility of human life.”

He criticized the Church’s response to these trends, saying, “unfortunately, the Western Church has succumbed to the temptation of despair and lack of faith, abandoning its own spiritual and liturgical heritage in the belief that it was enough simply to go with the flow.”

“This is a mistake,” he said, adding that scandals in recent times have also harmed her witness, along with Germany’s mandatory church tax, which he would like ended and made voluntary.

But Cardinal Ranjith is hopeful the situation can be overcome if Europe engages in a “serious examination of conscience” and if it recovers its philosophical and historical Christian roots.

“The Church should lead this process of reflection,” he said. “She cannot continue to be content with the current situation, thinking that things will automatically improve.” He called for a “new spiritual, theological, and pastoral approach” and exhorted Church leaders to live more coherent lives, closer to the faithful — “simple, deeply pastoral, and in keeping with the dignity of their office.”

Cardinal Ranjith went on to stress that Jesus’ teaching “is nonconformist and ever new” and cannot be “fossilized” within any particular philosophy or school of thought. “The Church must not allow herself to be engulfed by either modernism or traditionalism,” he said. “She must present the teaching of Jesus, the Lord, as the path to happiness in this life as well as in the life to come.” The Church, he stressed, must offer “the hope of the Kingdom of God.”

Asked about efforts to change Church teaching, especially on sexual morality and the ordination of women, the Sri Lankan prelate underlined that Jesus’ teachings “cannot be altered according to the whims or preferences of anyone,” including “a synodal council or an episcopal conference.”