Rome - September 20
Pope Benedict XVI’s latest spat with Islam justifies those critics who say he belongs into medieval times not the 21st century.
No one today doubts the German Pope wants to maintain the status quo in the Catholic Church: No innovations, no women priests, no married clergy, no contraception. Fair enough that is his papal privilege. But it seems he also wants to perpetuate the millennium-long prejudices of his church against Islam, reinforcing at a delicate moment the church-inoculated Islamophobia of the Western world.
Why else would he cite during a lecture magistralis at the university of Regensburg an obscure 14th century Byzantine Emperor who he quoted as having written: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
This citation could have been acceptable had the Pope added: ‘We Christians also spread our faith by the sword, by the inquisition, by the crusades, by the forced mass conversions of Moslems and Jews, the massacre of millions of Indios in Latin America. All this we did in the name of our God and our religion. All this was also evil and inhuman.’
But then the Pope would have stepped on perilous ground. He would have to admit these Christian crusades and pogroms violated the laws of Christianity. Worse, he would have to confirm they were instigated, sanctioned and blessed by his predecessors (as they were). And such an admission would call into question his and his predecessors’ ‘doctrine of infallibility’ – the ridiculous claim Popes can never be wrong.
If one reads Benedict XVI’s entire Regensburg lecture one can not find a valid reason for including this particular offending citation. After all the theme of the lecture was not Islam but the relationship between science and religion. The question then remains: Did Pope Ratzinger insert this apparently superfluous quote - which has now become a rally call for incensed Moslems - deliberately and read it out just one day after the world was treated to yet another anniversary of September 11?
Finally there is the puzzle why the Pope should cite Emperor Manuel II, famous for his loathing of Islam, an emperor virtually prisoner in his own palace in a Constantinople under siege by the Ottoman empire, an emperor who saw his reign reduced by the steady advance (and eventual conquest) of the Moslems. Can one expect a different assessment from such a man about a religion that is making him poor and obsolete?
No one needs a Pope to remind them Islam has taken a more militant stand in recent years, a stand mostly due to the West’s greed for control of Arab oil, the inertia of the dispute over Palestine, the occupation of Arab lands and the West’s support of Israel while pretending to be even-handed brokers in the dispute with the Arabs.
One more factor is now playing out. The majority of Middle East nations have authoritarian governments with a privileged class dominating society and the economy. The not-so-privileged see in the escalating power of the clergy an opportunity to be rid of these regimes and participate in what they feel will be a more egalitarian society. The clergy exploit this yearning for change using quips like those made by Benedict XVI to fuel the fire of dissent and religious fervor.
The Pope’s trite excuse, now voiced twice, his lecture was ‘misunderstood’ and his real intentions were to promote dialogue with Islam may not save the Pontiff from his own Curia in the Vatican - the bureaucracy that runs the Holy See – which has no stomach for gaffes or diplomatically embarrassing statements by its Holy Fathers. Ends
