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Pope Benedict XVI continues to push the limits of Vatican political correctness, directly confronting the issues of Islam and jihad, and it isn't popular among you-know-who. Could we have another cartoon deal brewing? remember, some Saudi Imams have said they will own the Vatican one of these days. So... I guess this is all about real estate.
Quote:
The Vatican press corps is slowly learning that it's best to cover Benedict on his own terms. For the 79-year-old would not stay silent for long on the topic of faith-based terror. On Tuesday, in a riveting and provocative university lecture, the Pope explored the philosophical and historical differences between Islam and Christianity—a speech that would become the surprise centerpiece of a five-day visit that many had expected would be mostly just a walk down memory lane.
There is little doubt left that Benedict is indeed highly attuned to the risks of fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, it is testament to where this problem stands on his list of priorities that he used the occasion of his triumphant return to Regensburg University, where he taught theology in the 1970s, to deliver a lecture that explored how Christians and Muslims may have historically viewed the relationship between violence and faith, based on the two religions' conceptions of the divinity.
Rather than tackling the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism with a pithy remark packaged for the 9/11 anniversary or reaching for a John Paul-inspired sweeping gesture, the professor Pope went digging into his books.
His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity’s view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that “God is absolutely transcendent.” Benedict said that Islam teaches that God’s “will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”
The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God’s will.
He went so far as to quote a 14th century Byzantine emperor´s hostile view of Islam’s founder. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said. “He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Muhammad 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.’”
Benedict added “I quote” twice to make it clear these were someone else’s words. Nevertheless this reference was undoubtedly the most provocative moment of a provocative lecture. In a sense, explicitly including the Muslim prophet by name, and citing the concept of jihad, was a flashing neon signal to the world that the soft-spoken Pope intends to make himself heard clearly on this defining tension of our times.
Sidebar: OK, 'softspoken' -- this is RATZINGER we're talking about! who was known as "John-Paul's Rottweiler!" he was as outspoken and non-pc about sticking to the letter of catholic theology as anyone has been in a long time!
Tuesday's university lecture was a watershed. After laying out the historical contrasts with Islam, the Pope used much of the discourse to call on the West, and Europe in particular, to clearly affirm the value of a faith in God —and a God built on reason. "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," he said. "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."
...taken together with this commitment to dialogue, the Pope's lecture in Regensburg seems to be saying: Yes, we must indeed talk, but now is the time for hard questions—not hugs and handshakes. The upside to Benedict's approach is that a brilliant theologian-Pope may help sharpen the terms of the debate.
The timing of this -- two or three days after Khatami gave a convoluted philosophical lecture in the US (widely cited in the ME)stating that the West was doomed and corrupted by it's experience of the Rennaisance, the Enlightenment, humanistic philosophy, and a destructive over-reliance on reason and rationality -- is interesting.
It is not the first time he has entered the fray. On his last trip to Germany, to Cologne for Catholic World Youth Day in August 2005, he told a group of Muslims that they have a responsibility to try to halt the violence carried out in the name of their religion. Even earlier on this trip to Bavaria, which ends Thursday, he seemed to refer to Islam’s negative view of a Western society that has too little faith, and cited it as the cause for tensions.
And the initial reactions:
Quote:
A senior Pakistani Islamic scholar, Javed Ahmed Gamdi, said jihad was not about spreading Islam with the sword.
Turkey’s top religious official asked for an apology for the “hostile” words.
In Indian-administered Kashmir, police seized copies of newspapers which reported the Pope’s comments to 'prevent any tension.'
The Muslim league, a Kashmiri separatist group, called for a protest Friday over the pope’s comments. “Whatever has been said against our Prophet is unbearable,” the group’s chief Masarat Alam said. “It should be condemned by all.”
A Vatican spokesman, Father Frederico Lombardi, said he did not believe the Pope’s comments were meant as a harsh criticism of Islam.
The Pope is due to visit Turkey in November and the Turkish response was swift and strong, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul. Religious leader Ali Bardakoglu said the Pope’s comments represented what he called an “abhorrent, hostile and prejudiced point of view”.
Many Turks see Benedict as a Turkophobe and commentators call his words just before the holy month of Ramadan “ill-timed and ill-conceived”, our correspondent adds.
In Qatar, prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi rejected the Pope’s comments and said Islam was a religion of peace and reason.
“Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity,” Qaradawi told Al Jazeera television. “We ask the pope to apologize to the Muslim nation for insulting its religion, its Prophet and its beliefs.”
DON'T DO IT, POPE ROTTWEILER! Don't back down! Let 'em rant and throw another global $#!t-fit.
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__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
The pope can kiss my butt. He and his fellow child molesters have ZERO moral authority, and his threats about Gay marriage, etc are un-Christian and ignorant.
Sinead O'Conner had it right - the papacy is part of the problem, and needs to just go away.
The pope can kiss my butt. He and his fellow child molesters have ZERO moral authority, and his threats about Gay marriage, etc are un-Christian and ignorant.
Sinead O'Conner had it right - the papacy is part of the problem, and needs to just go away.
How do you really feel?
__________________
I'm the anti-TNT. I don't do drama.
Oh, I have no use for the Papacy, believe me -- but if they want to put their oomph behind battling Islamists, go for it.
Plus, (pull out the wine and nachos) the idea of a major cat-fight between the Catholic Church and Islam should be very interesting. And Ratzinger is not someone who will placate or back down once he takes a position.
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
I was just over on foxnews (I don't want to hear it!!) and I gotta say I'm sick of this ****!!!!
When is the muslim community going to hold themselves to the standard they want everyone else to live by? You cannot mock Muhammad, if you do we will beat you to death.
Sure the Catholics aren't the saints they wish they were (If the priests and nuns got a lil' legal nookie every once in while that would probably go away) but at least in the Western society there are laws to fight current problems within the Catholic church.
Just a matter of time before the West and the East are fighting with religious genocide in mind!!
It would be nice if they both just went away!!
__________________ All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!
An unarmed person is a subject. An armed person is a citizen.
They should do a Survivor based on religion, not race. Winner takes over the world.
OH no! I've been reading a couple books on Arab (note: Arab, not just specifically Muslim, although they are obviously closely intertwined. For ex., Druze are not Muslim but have very similar cultural and conceptual views.) Psychology and cultural anthro type stuff -- they have a TOTALLY different, far more opportunist, expedient set of core cultural values than the West. (Which is fascinating and deeply disturbing -- they have no concern, and limited concept, about process - it's all about outcome. And a favorable outcome is all that is admitted -- there is no 'learning from one's mistakes' or 'good sportsmanship.')
However, the most intellectually brilliant, subtle machiavellians I've personally met were some ex-Jesuits, and I'd put money on them up against the Imams.
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
"Anyone Who Describes Islam As Intolerant Encourages Violence"
The insanity is beginning again.
Muslim students burn an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI at a protest rally in Allahabad, India, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006. A growing chorus of Muslim leaders has called on the Pope to apologize for the alleged derogatory comments made by him about Islam. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Pakistani Muslims hold rally after evening prayers at a local mosque to condemn Pope’s remarks, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan’s Parliament unanimously adopts a resolution condemning Pope Benedict XVI for making what it called ‘derogatory’ comments about Islam and seeking apology from him for hurting the sentiments of Muslims. (AP Photo / B.K.Bangash)
One of the signs above reads: “Jihad is a means to end tyranny and injustice.”
Indian Kashmiri activists of the pro-Pakistani Muslim League Jammu Kashmir (MLJK) shout slogans against Pope Benedict XVI during a protest in Srinagar. A wave of Muslim outrage swept the globe after Benedict linked Islam with violence, with the Pakistani parliament demanding that he retract the statement.(AFP/Sajjad Hussain)
Muslims Assail Pope’s Remarks on Islam.
On Friday, Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, said Benedict’s remarks were either “the result of pitiful ignorance” about Islam and its prophet, or worse, a deliberate distortion of the truths.
“He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world,” Kapusuz blurted out in comments made to the state-owned Anatolia news agency. “It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades.”
In Beirut, Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the remarks and demanded the pope personally apologize for insulting Islam. “We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology _ not through his officials _ to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam),” Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers in his Friday prayers sermon.
A Lebanese government official said the country’s ambassador to the Vatican has been instructed to seek clarifications on the pontiff’s remarks.
In neighboring Syria, the grand mufti, the country’s top Sunni Muslim religious authority, sent a letter to the Pope saying he feared the pontiff’s comments on Islam would worsen interfaith relations.
And in Cairo, about 100 demonstrators gathered in an anti-Vatican protest outside the capital’s al-Azhar mosque.
Pakistan’s parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called “derogatory” comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry also called the pope’s remarks “regrettable.”
“Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
It has been pointed out that while Islam still practices forced conversions -- at gunpoint, not swordpoint, it's true -- (and not a single moderate Muslim Imam has protested the gunpoint conversion of Fox reporters YET) it looks back several hundred years to show Christianity's similar behaviors. Because Christianity has reformed and turned away from violent conversion at swordpoint, the Pope CAN speak out.
Fellas, try the here and now. The Crusades have been over for more than 500 years! It's time to face forward -- but you know what? They can't!
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
Oh, I have no use for the Papacy, believe me -- but if they want to put their oomph behind battling Islamists, go for it.
Plus, (pull out the wine and nachos) the idea of a major cat-fight between the Catholic Church and Islam should be very interesting. And Ratzinger is not someone who will placate or back down once he takes a position.
Crusades installment XVI. That is one of those " My religion is better than your Religion" scenarios. Killing for Jesus and /or Mohammed.
__________________
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -
Pope Benedict told Muslims on Saturday he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the "true sense" of his words.
"The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,"
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith. Calls for him to apologize had spread beyond the Islamic world.
In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November.
But the Vatican statement said: "Confirming his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith, he (the Pope) hopes they will be helped to understand his words in their true sense."
Before the statement, the tide of Muslim criticism of the Roman Catholic leader swelled on Saturday.
Yemen's president became the first head of state publicly to denounce him and threatened to review ties with the Vatican unless he apologized. Ali Abdullah Saleh, campaigning for re-election, told voters at a rally Benedict had wronged Islam.
Two churches -- neither of them Catholic -- were fire-bombed in the
West Bank, although no one was hurt.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions, she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview. "What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion."
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
"He should apologize to Muslims," the president of the German Council of Muslims, Ayyub Axel Koehler, told the Neue Presse newspaper on Saturday. "That would be a contribution toward unwinding the tension and creating clarity."
Support for that view came from the New York Times, which said in an editorial on Saturday he must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said. "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal."
The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
Muslim figures continued to assail those comments.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said.
"Who attacked
Afghanistan and who invaded
Iraq? ... The Pope's statements are an attempt to put a religious cover on injustice and political aggression practiced by the American administration against Muslims."
Turkey's nationalist paper Vatan quoted Salih Kapusuz, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party's parliamentary group as saying: "The mentality of the Crusades has returned.
"(Benedict) will go down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
But Turkey's English-language Daily News, while deploring the Pope's comments, said: "We just disagree with this vendetta-like approach of continuing to abuse the Pope after his spokesman made a statement saying that he respected Islam and did not intend to offend Muslims."
Still waiting to see a religious leader who isn't a freaking moron.
__________________
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
The Pope himself has yet to issue a clarification or retraction. And in fact, everything he said is a legitimate historical and theological academic position, and he didn't say anything by accident.
Get OVER the Crusades! That was a two-way street, anyhow -- Muslims sweeping into Europe, murdering thousands until forced out -- well, that means they still own it, of course.
Europeans sweeping across the ME is a blot on Arab Honor that they still take personally to this day, and feel it still must be avenged?! Freakin' nuts.
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
He was just quoting a book. He did even say he agreed with the quote. Jeez, this is really, really stupid.
__________________
We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Assailants angry at Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam targeted several churches across the Palestinian territories on the second day of attacks directed at the Christian church.
In Gaza City, a group calling itself the Islamic Organization of the Swords of Righteousness claimed responsibility for unleashing a volley of gunfire on the oldest church in the city.
“We carried out this shooting because of the pope’s statement, and he must apologise,” the caller, who refused to give his name, told AFP Saturday.
The attack came a day after a grenade exploded outside the same church and four days after the pope criticised connections between Islam and violence, particularly with regard to jihad, or “holy war”.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, gunmen threw Molotov cocktails at four churches of different denominations, Palestinian security sources told AFP.
In one incident, gunmen opened fire inside an empty Catholic church after the building’s entrance door was burnt down, the sources said.
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
Moon Lander Champion!
All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!
