Beware Truisms

It has become so common that many accept it as true: Islam is reacting, even violently, against "the West." Is is that simple? Does that commonplace contain the whole truth?

No: with utmost certainty, the terrorist violence of the islamists, contrary to what many believe in the West, is not a reaction to “western aggressions”. The cause is found within a certain current of Muslim thought.

Those words of Jesuit Fr. Samir Khalil Samir are in his recent, concise article, "Islamic terrorism, a disease within the Muslim world."

While prayers for those we love, who are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, are necessary, praying for them only forgets wide swaths of people and cultures also sorely affected.