Religious ignorance

Ignorance about the West and Christianity, virulent anti-Semitism, and general cultural myopia are as much dangers in the Islamic world as misconceptions about Islam are in the West. What would help enormously is for Muslim leaders and writers to stop carping about how misunderstood they are and to confront the fact that there is ignorance on both sides.

All the evils which poison men and nations and trouble so many hearts have a single cause and a single source: ignorance of the truth – and at times even more than ignorance, a contempt for truth and a reckless rejection of it. Thus arise all manner of errors, which enter the recesses of men's hearts and the bloodstream of human society as would a plague. These errors turn everything upside down: they menace individuals and society itself. Once we have attained the truth in its fullness, integrity, and purity, unity should pervade our minds, hearts, and actions. For there is only one cause of discord, disagreement, and dissension: ignorance of the truth, or what is worse, rejection of the truth once it has been sought and found. It may be that the truth is rejected because of the practical advantages which are expected to result from false views; it may be that it is rejected as a result of that perverted blindness which seeks easy and indulgent excuses for vice and immoral behavior. (Papal Encyclical, Ad Petri Cathedram, 29 June 1959).