Sep

15

Seething

September 15, 2006 |

During his speech in Cologne, the Pope read lines from a book detailing a conversation between the Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

He quoted the emperor as 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 telegraph

Now, the question is whether or not the Vatican is willing to stand by the Pope’s quotation and the critical message he was giving the West. Unfortunately the Vatican sees it necessary to issue a clarification of the Pope’s remarks in the face of Muslim seething:

The Vatican issued a statement saying that no offence had been intended. The Rev Federico Lombardi said:”It certainly wasn’t the intention of the Pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

He said Benedict wanted to “cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam”.
the telegraph

Unfortunate but despite the backing and filling it is perfectly clear what the Pope was driving at. And as I pointed out some time ago, the present Pontiff is clear on the nature of Islam.

Update: From Stephen Bates, Religion reporter for the Guardian:

On the other hand, if you cannot, as part of a lengthy and profound academic lecture, cite a 600 year-old text for fear of stirring the aggravation of noisy politicians half way around the world, what CAN you do? We might as well all retreat into obscurantism. And keep our mouths shut, for otherwise, who knows who we might offend. And if, as a result of the outrage, some Catholics get killed or their churches burned down by offended scholars and textual exegesists it might be thought that Manuel’s original point had rather been made.
the guardian

It will be interesting to see if the Vatican is willing to stand up to the more excitable end of the Islamic community on this one or whether it will join in the craven cringe which characterizes so much Western response to Islamic “outrage’.

What would be really delightful would be for the Pontiff to simply suggest to the assembled Islamic seethers that they grow up.


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