Martin Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 here is the text of the pope's apology: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5353774.stm "Dear Brothers and Sisters, The pastoral visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday's general audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect. " the apology apparently did not sooth Muslim wrath: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354862.stm Pope apology fails to end anger (BBC dateline 18 September) Photo caption: Muslim clerics in Qom, Iran, were part of continuing protests. Pope Benedict XVI's renewed apology for comments he made last week on Islam has been welcomed by some Muslim groups but has failed to end the anger. There were further protests in Indonesia and Iran and one influential cleric called for a day of anger. The Pope on Sunday apologised in person for causing offence in the speech. He said the medieval text he quoted, which said the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only evil, did not in any way express his personal opinion. The Pope issued his apology from the balcony at his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome as gave the Angelus blessing. His clarification was welcomed by a number of Muslim groups, including the Council of Muslims in Germany, where he made the speech. It said the Pope had taken an important step towards calming the unrest of the past few days.
Martin Posted September 18, 2006 Author Posted September 18, 2006 Just for definiteness, I bet Bee that the Pope would NOT be put under Fatwa. (that is an official action taken by Muslim clerics) In fact I do not think that a Fatwa has been issued. Please let me know if I am wrong. Obviously Muslims are wrathful about the Pope's remarks, but Fatwa is something else. I think my bet is safe.
Bettina Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 Before they close this thread. I love you Martin and just want you to know that I appreciate the understanding you always gave me. the Fatwa was a stupid sarcastic comment on my part and I got an official warning for it which I deserved and which should finally make some people happy. I've been watching what you have been saying and your going to get into trouble... so please stop. Your respected here and I want you to stay that way... Your friend... Bee
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 Let's not go off on a tangent, please.
Jim Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 here is the text of the pope's apology: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5353774.stm "Dear Brothers and Sisters, The pastoral visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday's general audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect. " the apology apparently did not sooth Muslim wrath: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354862.stm Pope apology fails to end anger (BBC dateline 18 September) Photo caption: Muslim clerics in Qom, Iran, were part of continuing protests. Pope Benedict XVI's renewed apology for comments he made last week on Islam has been welcomed by some Muslim groups but has failed to end the anger. There were further protests in Indonesia and Iran and one influential cleric called for a day of anger. The Pope on Sunday apologised in person for causing offence in the speech. He said the medieval text he quoted, which said the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only evil, did not in any way express his personal opinion. The Pope issued his apology from the balcony at his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome as gave the Angelus blessing. His clarification was welcomed by a number of Muslim groups, including the Council of Muslims in Germany, where he made the speech. It said the Pope had taken an important step towards calming the unrest of the past few days. What I would like to see from Muslim groups is some statement such as the following: "My fellow Muslims: Please get a grip and stop overreacting to an minor innocent point made by the Pope in a much more substantial speech. If we want to be respected in the free world, it is our responsibility to respect freedom of expression. Phony overblown reaction of anger to this speech will not serve us well in the long term if we want the modern world's respect. Many of our own hurt Islam by threatening to kill cartoonists and authors. Many of our own have made hateful comments about Jews and this makes us look like we can dish it out but we can't take it. This must stop. Now. You who react with rage and violence to thoughts are the real danger to Islam and I condemn you. Isn't it time that we showed tolerence and understanding in the face of a potential slight in leiu of defensive outrage? Reading the full text of the Pope's September 14 speech there is absolutely no reason to believe that he thinks that Islam is evil but, let's face facts brothers, we do have problems. Our religion has a growing disease of radicallism which is far more of a threat to those of us who value peace and abhor the cynical use of religion for transient political purporses. Your reaction to the Pope's innocent speech is a manifestation of that disease. Some of you have even suggested that the Pope was advocating a new crusade. How can you be so disingenuous when the Pope expressly said, the "decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature." Is this not what we now believe? In some cases, I believe the Pope was wrong but I, unlike the Catholics, never claimed that he was infallible. When the Pope stated, "But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality," I found myself nodding, not in agreement, but that this is a fair assessment of a divide in religious thinking. The Pope, was, after all, correct when he said that "the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us." Was this not an opportunity for us to talk rationally amongst ourselves as to what we believe and, if it is clear that this characterization was false, to calmly explain why? Do we not risk proving the Pope's point by reacting with incoherent rage to an intellectual point which does us no harm? What, my brothers, is our fear of words and ideas? My faith is not so weak that I feel vulnerable to ideas. I may feel sadness that others do not share the joy of my life in loving God but never rage. Above all else, the Pope's speech repeatedly advocates the Greek heritage of rationality in Christian belief. I, for one, agree with his central point - God does not, CAN NOT, value coerced faith. I have no idea what it is that GOd sees of value in mere men such as I but whatever the quality that brings God's love it has something to do with our free choice to give our lives to him. Nothing in the Pope's speech said that modern Muslims do not now share this belief. In fact, nothing in the Pope's speech said that Christians uniformly share his belief either. To the contrary, the Pope said: "The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age." Will you rage at me for admitting that I enjoyed the Pope's speech? I find nothing with which to disagree in the Pope's conclusion: And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. 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. I ask you again, brothers, what do we fear from these words? More to the point, what do we gain by isolating a single section which quoted an 14th century emperor during a seige by Mehmed II whom early Ottoman historians claimed was a prophet of Islam? Please, brothers, grow up and have faith in our God not to be harmed by the words of men. I beg you all to join with me in condemning not the Pope but those who have overreacted to his message of rational nonviolence.
ecoli Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 Well said Jim. If only some leaders in the Muslim world shared your sensibility. While it obviously won't be the straw that breaks the camel's back, should they not be some limit when the Western world says 'enough is enough.' We try and be as politically correct as possible, but when a groups of Muslims start reacting with anger to something that is even hard to concieve of slanderous, why do we have to sit back and continue to appease them? I understand why the Pope apologized, but I don't really believed he had to. 'They' don't apologize to the west, why do 'we' have to apologize to 'them.' They are playing on our political divisions and emotions in order to get the upper hand on us. And look, it's working. In the paragraph above, I used words like 'us' and 'them.' The west has begun to think of the Muslim world as an enemy. Yet, it's an untouchable enemy. We are tied to our strange need to be ever politically correct. So I ask, when will the breaking point come?
Martin Posted September 18, 2006 Author Posted September 18, 2006 Before they close this thread...Your friend... Bee Bee I can't thank you enough for your care and concern. but not to worry. we must simply try to be good humored and civil with each other and do the best we can. I see no reason anyone would close this thread. this is pure politics played out in an intensely dramatic almost ikonic way----and contains valuable political lessons. we can learn so much from these current events---and it is your century: something you naturally want to understand as well as possible. Mine (also very exciting) was the previous one. one thing I would like us to get out of this thread is that a century can have a kind of dynamo driving it. one can argue that the engine of 20th century history was people's concern about competing political systems implementing different economic ideals---you had this titanic struggle between different systems of ownership and control, social classes----the "cold war". Now that is no longer such an important motif. some people think that concerns about religion and cultural practices (like the socially approved form of the family and the position of women etc) could be a similar kind of ENGINE driving the history of the 21st. I don't know if that is true. but suspect that events like this thing with the pope could help illuminate major currents in todays politics and history. help us see the core essentials of what is going on ================ Jim and ecoli, appreciate your reactions. Particularly fascinated by Jim's voice of an imagined Muslim leader. One of the difficulties actually is that while R.C.ism has a HEAD namely the pope, Islam AFAIK has no head. Another political dimension to the situation. Islam is organized politically differently (decentralized authority) than R.C.ism (hierarchy with centralized authority) many interwoven themes. let's keep our eyes open and see what we can learn
Martin Posted September 18, 2006 Author Posted September 18, 2006 Jim, ecoli, Bee, please check this out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5352404.stm I was interested by this detail: ===sample exerpt=== ... the removal from office of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald. The British-born cleric ran a Vatican department that promoted dialogue with other religions. A distinguished scholar on Arab affairs, he was an acknowledged expert on the Islamic world. The decision by Benedict XVI to remove him from his post, and send him to Egypt as papal nuncio, was widely seen as a demotion. Some wondered about the wisdom of the move. Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit scholar and an authority on the workings of the Vatican, told the BBC news website of his concerns: "The Pope's worst decision so far has been the exiling of Archbishop Fitzgerald," he said in an interview in April this year. "He was the smartest guy in the Vatican on relations with Muslims. You don't exile someone like that, you listen to them. "If the Vatican says something dumb about Muslims, people will die in parts of Africa and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East. "It would be better for Pope Benedict to have Fitzgerald close to him." That warning now seems prophetic. Did nobody at the Vatican anticipate the way the Pope's words might be taken out of context, and the likely reaction? Since the 9/11 terror attacks on America, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, nobody has been in any doubt about the importance of promoting a better understanding between Christianity and Islam.... ===enquote====
GutZ Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 I don't understand this situation at all. The pope was quoting some guy linking violence to Islam, now some people are burning churches? "We are not violent!" *burns down church* Odd way to disprove it.
Sisyphus Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 Who's burning churches? What form is this supposed "Muslim anger" taking? And what was the actual context of the Pope's original speach? What was he actually trying to say? I ask merely for information. Just as it would be stupid to get angry at the Pope for something he wasn't actually saying, I wouldn't want to chastise an entire religion when I haven't even seen what anyone is doing.
Pangloss Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 In fact I do not think that a Fatwa has been issued. Please let me know if I am wrong. Three different Muslim groups declared holy war ("jihad") today. You can debate whether that's the same thing as issuing a fatwah, but I think that's a bit of hair-splitting, even by the standards of extremists. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20433599-5005961,00.html
Martin Posted September 18, 2006 Author Posted September 18, 2006 Gutz and Sisyphus, I assume you read my post which contained a quote from Jesuit Father Reese, if you check the link you can see it was from April 2005. I have not seen any report of Muslim burning Xian churches. Maybe you have, if so please tell us! Any extra information would help fill out the picture. what I saw was that Father Reese deplores that in April 2005 the Vatican got rid of its best Islam expert----the guy who can review your speeches and tell you most accurately what the reaction in the street will be. In the 1950s and 1960s the US trained and developed a cadre of Russia experts---Soviet studies was an academic specialty and astute Kremlin watching was a profession. When survival depends on understanding how the other guy leaders are thinking and on understanding how an ordinary citizen or middlegrade factor mananger sees life then you hone your skills. the aim was to understand and not necessarily to engage in war with. the aim to a large extent was to FOSTER CERTAIN DEFINITE CHANGES IN THE OTHER SIDE (and to contain expansion). Jesuit Father Reese essentially predicted that if you dismiss your only real Islam scholar and political scientist in April 2005 then by September 2006 you will be apologizing while your effigy is being burned in the street. that's just one little detail. And Father Reese may be wrong about a lot of things. Benedict fired him too. He used to be editor of a RC opinion-forming magazine. This is a beautiful lab for learning practical statemanship----the intelligent management of major conflict situations. Our job is to stay cool and learn as much as we can.
Sayonara Posted September 18, 2006 Posted September 18, 2006 Let's not go off on a tangent, please. Or, even better, let's not revive religious discussions from the closed P&R forum on the politics board. Let me make this perfectly clear (as if enough has not been done already to convey the message): SFN no longer welcomes the discussion of religion or religious issues. You have already been told that alternative arrangements are being made. Be patient.
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