Benedicts Remarks

On September 12, Pope Benedict XVI gave a lecture at Regensburg University, where he once was on faculty. One quote he used during the speech raised alarms throughout the Muslim World. The pope’s statement was: “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” – quoting Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus

At its root, the issues over the Pope’s comments are about the future of religion – both Christian and Muslim – within a liberal European society. Although the exact quote used by Pope Benedict is what sparked much of the outrage in the Muslim world, there was scant attention paid to the speech overall.

The pope was talking about the future of the Church itself and its own internal “holy war” in defining a modern identity of the Catholic Church within a secularized Roman Catholic Church. His point was this: “The decisive statement in his argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.”

He goes on in the speech to note the contradiction between God’s transcendence. He asks, “Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?” He goes on to describe a melding of Greek philosophy and Christian spirit, and the later dehellenization of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He criticizes the melding of mathematical and elemental science with the human and social sciences, which he argues excludes God.

His central theme is to argue for a combination of reason and faith – science and theology. He further argues for a widespread dialogue of cultures and religions.

His argument, therefore, is not unreasonable, making the criticisms of his quote that much more remarkable. Further, his quick apology for misunderstanding is also notable, and in many ways, proves his point – the overreaction in the Muslim world only demonstrates a greater need for dialogue and understand not only between Muslims and Catholics, but between the rational and faith. It is this debate that is shared between Europe and the Middle East, but also a point of conflict between them. This shared struggle between rationality (i.e. modernity) and faith is shared between the Middle East and the west. Ultimately, the humility of the Holy Father should give many pause to consider what he ultimately is proposing.

What is forgotten in the protests and the fallout, is that dialogue as called for by the Pope requires as much listening, if not more, than it requires screaming.