|
Newsflash
Archives > Reaping the Whirlwind
News Analysis
(The following article will appear in
the October issue of Inside the Vatican magazine. To subscribe,
click here or, in the USA, call
the toll-free number 1-800-789-9494.)
Inside the Vatican, October 2006
Reaping the Whirlwind
Benedict's meaning in his Regensburg speech
has been misinterpreted by almost everyone -- by those who
condemn him, but also by his defenders...
- by Dr. Robert Moynihan
"They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind."
--Hosea 8:7
"Ich hätte mir ein paar Worte der
Differenzierung gewünscht. Zwei, drei Zeilen hätten viel bewirkt."
("I would have wished for a few words of clarification.
Two or three lines would have accomplished a great deal.")
-- Prof. Theodore Khoury, editor
and translator of the book containing the dialogue of the
Emperor Manuel II Paleologus with the Persian Muslim which
Pope Benedict cited in his Regensburg speech September 12
Back in 1999, on May 14 in the Vatican, Pope
John Paul II bowed as "a sign of respect" toward a copy of
the Koran which was presented to him as a gift. When the book
was officially "presented to him," the Pope (perhaps a bit
perplexed concerning the appropriate protocol for such an
official gesture) kissed it.
On September 12 in Regensburg, Germany,
Pope Benedict XVI, in a lecture to 1,500 university professors
and students, cited an obscure medieval emperor engaged in
a dialogue with a Persian Muslim, as saying with regard to
the Islamic faith, "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."
We all know what happened next. Protests
throughout the Islamic world, and in Europe, and in America
(the New York Times "pontificated" that the Pope
should immediately apologize for his remarks).
Sheik Malin of Somalia called for the
Pope's murder. Churches were set on fire in the Holy Land.
An Italian nun was shot to death in Somalia (though it was
not clear that the shooting was related to the Pope's words).
In Iran, Islamic newspapers suggested
there was an Israeli-US plot behind the Pope's words. The
daily Jomhuri Islami said: "If we do not consider
Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks
against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and
the Americans have written (for him)." Fellow hardline daily
Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there were signs of Israeli
interference aimed at creating conflict between Islam and
Christianity.
In Israel, Jewish rabbi Shlomo Amar (the
Chief Sephardi rabbi) weighed in, expressing sorrow over "the
deprecating things said against Islam" by the Pope. "Our way
is to respect all religions, nations and peoples according
to their customs," Amar said.
And (last but not least) in the Vatican
itself, a monsignor (anonymous) was cited as saying, "Under
John Paul II, this would not have happened."
So the Pope was attacked by secular humanists
(the New York Times), by conservative Muslims, by
a leading Jewish rabbi -- and by monsignors in the Vatican
itself.
Talk about being isolated.
Benedict had (in a sense) "sown the wind,
and reaped the whirlwind."
How can all this be explained? Did Benedict,
a gentle German theology professor who has spent his pontificate
being thoughtful and kind, preaching to children and writing
an encyclical about love, intend to "insult" Islam, or Mohammed,
as claimed?
Sometimes words have unintended consequences.
Taken out of context, interpreted in a way the speaker did
not intend, they can cause confusion, shock, anger, violence.
And that was the case for Pope Benedict
XVI. His address is not a "bashing" or "blasting" or "indictment"
of Islam but rather a profound reflection on the need for
the West to return to religious faith.
Benedict's main point -- and few have
noted this -- is that the West, unless it recovers
a vision of God, cannot engage in a fruitful dialogue
with the other great cultures of the world, which have
a basic religious conviction about reality. Among these great
cultures, of course, is Islam.
His entire talk is focused on this point.
He attempts to persuade his academic audience
that giving theology a voice in the modern Western
university would be of immense benefit to Western
society, because it would lead to a rational dialogue on the
central meaning of human existence; namely, an investigation
of the nature of God. Such an inquiry, he says, would
counter Europe's destructive denial of its own origins.
Yes, Benedict did cite a few explosive
words from a medieval Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus
(Emperor of Byzantium from 1391 to 1425). And the world's
media focused on those few words, highlighted them and interpreted
them as an attack on Mohammed and Islam, and in so doing inflamed
Muslim emotions worldwide.
But are these words -- in context -- an
attack on Islam and Islam's prophet, Mohammed?
No. No, Benedict did not attack Islam,
or Mohammed. This is a misunderstanding of what he said, and
this is precisely what the Pope said on Sunday that he regretted:
that he had been misunderstood.
Let us consider very carefully what Benedict
does with regard to Islam in this speech. First, he focuses
on one very specific point in the Emperor's long dialogue
with the Persian, the issue of jihad, or holy war.
He writes:
"In the seventh conversation edited
by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of
the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura
2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion.
It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed
was still powerless and under threat."
Now, the first striking thing we note
here is that Benedict is citing the Koran. Rarely
in the history of the papacy (if ever -- I am not aware of
other cases) has a Pope of Rome cited the Koran in a public
address, and in a positive way. I say "in a positive way"
for Benedict here, like the Emperor himself, evidently agrees
with the verse of the Koran which says "There is no compulsion
in religion."
The second striking thing we note is that
Benedict characterizes this passage of the Koran as "one of
the suras of the early period," a period "when Mohammed
was still powerless and under threat." What is Benedict doing?
He is setting up his argument that this passage has more authority
for Islam (because it is earlier) than the later passages
which seem to contradict it, and call for compulsion in religion.
In an oblique way, he is inviting Muslim theologians to undertake
a type of textual criticism of their own sacred scripture,
the Koran, to uncover its deepest meaning.
That this is what Benedict is doing is
proven by the next phrase:
"But naturally the emperor also knew
the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an,
concerning holy war."
Benedict uses two words to characterize
the Koranic passages on holy war: he terms them "instructions"
and he says they were "developed later." It seems to me that
he is suggesting that these passages on "Jihad," because "developed
later," could possibly be -- he does not say this, but, in
a very unpolemical way, I think, suggests it -- of less binding
force than the "earlier" sura which quite clearly
says "There is no compulsion in religion."
Then he writes:
"The decisive statement in this argument
against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance
with reason is contrary to God's nature."
At this point in his talk, Benedict has
barely begun. He has 90% of his 30-minute talk to go. And
during the entire remaining 90% of his talk -- the vast majority
of the talk -- he doesn't talk about Islam or jihad at all,
but only about how man can come to know God's nature. This
is the main thrust of his talk, because Benedict is arguing
that only by seeking to know God's nature better and more
completely can mankind come to walk in the ways God wills.
But this final 90% of the talk becomes,
not an indictment of Islamic jihad, as so many seem to think,
both in the Islamic community, and in the secularized West,
but an indictment of the West itself, for eliminating
the transcendent, the holy, the divine, from modern consciousness.
Benedict's talk is first and foremost a call to the West
to convert, to return, to its own deepest religious identity.
Then, in addition to being a call to the
secularized West to return to faith, it is also a
call to both Jews and Muslims to come to
recognize a Christ whom Benedict presents as the culminating
"Logos" (the "meaning" or "reason"), not only of
the ancient world, but of all history.
So, in his Regensburg talk, Benedict is
actually preaching to all mankind -- first to the secularized
Western elites, then to both Jews and Muslims -- saying that
what is needed today to overcome the threats facing humanity,
to overcome the threat of a "clash of civilizations," is a
conversion to Christ as the "Logos," the "Reason"
("the Word") of God.
It is true: preaching Christ is, in and
of itself, offensive to everyone today, to secular humanists,
to Muslims, to Jews -- even to some Vatican monsignors. But
that is what the Pope was doing at Regensburg.
The Pope said, toward the end of his Regensburg
speech:
"While we rejoice in the new possibilities
open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these
possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome
them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith
come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed
limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and
if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense
theology rightly belongs in the university and within the
wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical
discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely
as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.
"Only thus do we become capable of that
genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed
today."
With regard to Islam, he was appealing
(in a oblique way, since the talk was not addressed directly
to Muslims at all) for reflection on those teachings of Islam
which seem to be not in keeping with an understanding of God
as loving, reasonable, and good.
He was appealing to the "better
angels" of those in the Muslim world who take their faith
very seriously, asking them whether they did not think that
resorting to violence was opposed to their own deepest understanding
of God.
It is a call by the successor of
Peter to the whole world to consider and, if it might be possible,
to accept what he proposes: a profound understanding of the
"Christo-centric" ("Logos-centric") nature of all
reality, which is ultimately, in terms of human affairs, summed
up in a few words: love one another; be at peace with one
another; renounce vengeance; lay down one's life for one's
brother; be peacemakers.
Some, like Prof. Khoury, have suggested
that Benedict could have "contextualized" Manuel's charge
that Mohammed brought the world only coercion and evil in
his new religion.
Perhaps if Benedict had thought
a bit longer he would have been very careful to distinguish
between Manuel's words and his own views. But then again,
perhaps this raging controversy is precisely what is needed
to bring all of us -- Jew and Gentile, Muslim and Christian,
atheist and believer -- to a deeper reflection on the nature
of our faiths. For it is far better that we debate these matters
with words, than with weapons, and all the sorrow that comes
with them.
Subscription Information
Inside The Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579) is a Catholic news magazine, published monthly except July
and September, with occasional special supplements.
| 
