PARIS�Increasingly, the Catholic Church is showing an intolerance for the rise of Islam in Europe and the West, traditional strongholds of Christianity, the chief imam of France said in an exclusive interview.

"Islam has become the scapegoat of other religions," said Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, imam of the Muslim Institute of the Mosque of Paris, the largest mosque in France. "There is no territorial religion in Europe. If Islam has had success in Europe, the Christians also have had success in China, India, Africa."

Dr. Boubakeur�s remarks stemmed from questions The Final Call posed about a recent attack on Islam made by Cardinal Paul Poupard, the Vatican-based head of the Papal Cultural Council and a close assistant to Pope John Paul II. In the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, cardinals rank just below the pope.

The cardinal headlined the Sept. 30 issue of Le Figaro, the French national daily, in which he stated that the spread of Islam in Europe represented a "serious problem" to Christians.

And while the cardinal was careful to distinguish between Islam and "fundamental" Islam, he cautioned, nonetheless, that this distinction "does not mean that Islam still does not represent a fearsome challenge to Europe and the West, and, to Christian hopes, a serious problem."

"To be conscious of this growing presence of Islam, particularly in a Europe where the borders are more and more porous, is to face a reality," Cardinal Poupard said. "We must prepare ourselves and face this problem without passion.

"It is not necessary to be a great expert to realize a growing distortion between two demographic curves. In the countries of Christian cultures, the demography is progressively dropping; while we realize the inverse in the young Muslim countries," the cardinal added.

The cardinal could not be reached at the Vatican in Rome. But a secretary at the Vatican Embassy in Paris said that the majority of Catholic clergy were away in Lourdes, France, attending a weeklong plenary assembly of French bishops.

Dr. Boubakeur said he did not wish to meet with Cardinal Poupard until the cardinal has issued an apology to the Muslim community.

And although Le Figaro, a popular French newspaper, published Dr. Boubakeur�s rebuttal a week later in its Oct. 7 issue, it did so without the fanfare that was conferred upon the cardinal.

For Dr. Boubakeur, Christianity�s attack on Islam is a historical one that goes back 904 years to the Crusades, a series of wars fought by Western European Christians to recapture the city of Jerusalem from Muslims.

"Europe�s colonization of Muslim countries has given a complex of superiority to churches and people that the European example is the best in the world," Dr. Boubakeur said. "We fear that it is a racist attitude towards Arabs, Africans, Islam, and Jews during the last war."

Islam in Europe

Muslims comprise less than 10 percent of Europe�s population, Dr. Boubakeur said. But the rise of Islam here poses the threat of a rival culture and religion, as Cardinal Poupard and others see it.

"The challenge stems from the fact that Islam is supposed to be religion, culture and society, a way of life, of thinking and of behavior," Cardinal Poupard told Le Figaro. "The actuality shows us that this Islam does not change. At the same time in Europe, some Christians, under the pressure of society and also interior ferments, wish for the marginalization of their church in relation to society, accepting the �privatization� of this church�a word that horrifies me. They will forget Lent, judged �square,� but will be interested, if not fascinated, by Ramadan (the Islamic month of fasting) ..."

Fundamentalist right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of the National Front, was less eloquent.

"Islam is a religion of more than a billion men, young, generally poor. For our materialistic and decadent world this is an objective threat," Mr. Le Pen said in a speech given in Paris last September.

A poll for Le Nouvel Observateur magazine in 1998 reported that nearly 66 percent of the French thought that the country had "too many Arabs" and "too many Muslims."

Clearly, Europe is a Christian continent. The majority of its 311 million inhabitants are adherents of the Trinitarian churches�Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopalian, Anglican�believers in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Islam, on the other hand, adheres to the belief in the One God, Allah. And God has no intercessor, Dr. Boubakeur said.

"But the Qur�an says leave each people in his own way. No one is obliged to share my convictions," he added.

Muslims are still the minority in popular European countries.

France, for instance, is 90 percent Roman Catholic, 2 percent Protestant, and about 5 percent Muslim. Great Britain is 60 percent Protestant Episcopal and Roman Catholic, followed by Anglican, and 1 percent Muslim.

Nevertheless, European official-doms� interpretations of these numbers reveal a collective fear of an Islamic conquest of Christian countries.

A crisis brewing in Jerusalem could further escalate tensions abroad. A dispute over the building of a mosque next to the Basilica of the Annunciation, the church which Catholics believe marks the spot where the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, has sparked a planned two-day protest beginning on Nov. 22 by leaders of the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations. It has also put the Pope�s March 25, 2000 Annunciation Day visit there in doubt.

Those threatened by Islam work to discredit it through the shaping of the dominate propaganda against it, usually by way of the media, observers say. In September, a three-part doc-umentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. cast a supposedly "unbiased" look at Islam in Russia, Black America, and France.

With regard to Black America, the usual negative portrayal of the Nation of Islam dominated the program beamed into France. (The British government has yet to lift a 13-year-old ban against Min. Louis Farrakhan.)

Widespread propaganda that Islam is a violent religion serves to indoctrinate the public with a negative view, Dr. Boubakeur said.

Thus, veiled women walking down the Champs-Elys�es, female preteens wearing head scarves, and Muslim men wearing beards, are all equally viewed as potential terrorists.