UPDATE II: Although he has conditionally apologized to calm outraged zealots, Pope Benedict has proven his point. The leader of the Catholic Church's controversial remarks on violent extremists hijacking the religion of Islam have spawned calls for conversions under threat of death from al-Qaeda jihadists in Iraq and for "capital punishment" from a radical imam in England; plus heated condemnations from many other quarters. Yet there is real value in the dialog which has begun, and in the blowback to the blowback, if you will. For starters, The Australian does a public service by printing Benedict's remarks to the German university audience, which launched the whole flare-up. The Pope stated, in part:

I read the edition by Theodore Khoury of part of the dialogue carried on, perhaps in 1391, by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Koran.

The emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that Sura (Koranic chapter) 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war ... He addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence, saying: "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."

The emperor, having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain ... why spreading faith through violence is something unreasonable....The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. Khoury observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? ...

...The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions that underlie its rationality and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur, this is the program with which a theology grounded in biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God," said Manuel II, according to his understanding of God. It is to this great logos, this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.

Note first that the controversial snippet (italicized above) is described by Benedict as "startlingly brusque," and then again as "forceful." Secondly, The Pope goes on to clearly state the dichotomy which concerns him and many others today: between the rational word of God and "spreading faith through violence" by relying on the word of an "absolutely transcendent" God "not bound up" with rationality. This, unfortunately, describes a great many Islamic terrorist attacks upon Western targets. Benedict is simply drawing a universal line in the sand about what religion can and cannot be. As leader of the Catholic Church, he is so entitled. Those who disagree with his analysis are free to respond in kind.

That is, with reason, not death threats or even angry denunciations.

In today's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum writes:

...Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting....in our support for freedom of speech...and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary...but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus.

...nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

William Rees-Mogg adds this in today's FrontPage mag:

The question is whether the (Byzantine) emperor (quoted by Pope Benedict) is justified in what he said. His main thrust was at least partly justified. There is a real problem about the teaching of the Koran on violence against the infidel. That existed in the 14th century, and was demonstrated on 9/11, 2001. There is every reason to discuss it. I am more afraid of silence than offence....(In) "The Qur’an, a Biography" ...Bruce Lawrence, who is the Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University, makes several relevant points. (Osama) Bin Laden selects only those (Koran) verses that fit his message....He collapses the broad spectrum of Koranic teaching into a double requirement: first to believe; and then to fight....Violence is a fault from which no major religion has historically been free....Yet nowadays Islam is the only major religion in which violence is a serious doctrinal issue....A significant proportion of the Islamic community does believe that suicide bombers are martyrs carrying out a religious duty. Suicide bombing causes Islamophobia....Those imams who preach al-Qaeda’s view of the duty of jihad are not required to answer to any authority, even the authority of reason.

Islam has only partially experienced the modern process of enlightenment and reform, which was, after all, resisted by a number of pre-Vatican II Popes. Pope Benedict will have done Islam a service if he has started a debate within Islam and between Islam and the critics.

Finally, AP's 25-year Vatican correspondent Victor L. Simpson notes in a story just published that Benedict's concerns about violent extremism marring Islam and global relations run deep.

Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Islam and holy war that have angered much of the Muslim world are in line with his efforts to spare religion from violence and extremism. During his 17-month papacy, Benedict has lectured Muslims on the need to teach their young to shun violence, suggested that violent as well as peaceful strains are part of Islam and pressed for religious freedom — part of efforts to extend rights to Christians in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East.

While Benedict's comments on Islam and holy war may not have been "politically correct," said former Vatican diplomat John-Peter Pham, "today much of our dialogue is fruitless because we feel constrained from saying what we really think."....."The violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedict's main fears," said Australian Cardinal George Pell. "They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence," Pell said Monday.

In the Vatican's first response to the Muslim criticism, papal spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was clear that Benedict sought to "cultivate an attitude of respect toward other religions and cultures, including of course Islam." But he also said it was important to the pope that there be a "clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation of violence."

The list of things which must first occur is daunting: economic, educational, political, religious and social reforms in a host of Middle East, African and Asian nations; settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; and especially, eradication of a cancerous liberal Western moral relativity. It is not Benedict's job to spell out how we arrive at the destination; that is for us workaday souls and our putative leaders to figure. But Benedict is right to point to the place on the map at which we need to arrive; and to provide a few big signposts. If tolerance, religious freedom and peace are to mean anything at all, they must have a common meaning based on common values of reason, good and evil. These are not "whatever...dude" constructs, although that is essentially what learned professors teach our children at community colleges and the nation's most esteemed universities, and what legions of Western parlor revolutionaries today believe. Rather, these are values which any God worthy of the name - and any deserving bearers of His word - would define properly and uphold firmly.

TECHNORATI TAGS: POPE BENEDICT, SPEECH, TEXT, ISLAMIC EXTREMISM, PROTESTS, REASON, RELIGION, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, THE AUSTRALIAN, WASHINGTON POST, ANNE APPLEBAUM, FRONT PAGE, WILLIAM REES-MOGG, ASSOCIATED PRESS, VICTOR L. SIMPSON

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 19, 2006 04:50 PM

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