George Weigel in the LA Times:
Responsibility for challenging these distorted views of God and the distorted understanding of moral duty that flows from them rests, first, with Islamic leaders. But too few Islamic leaders, the pope seemed to suggest, have been willing to undertake a cleansing of Islam’s conscience — as Pope John Paul II taught the Catholic Church to cleanse its historical conscience.
We know that, in the past, Christians used violence to advance Christian purposes. The Catholic Church has publicly repented of such distortions of the Gospel and has developed a deep theological critique of the misunderstandings that led to such episodes. Can the church, therefore, be of some help to those brave Islamic reformers who, at the risk of their own lives, are trying to develop a parallel Islamic critique of the distorted and lethal ideas of some of their co-religionists?
By quoting from a robust exchange between a medieval Byzantine emperor and a learned Islamic scholar, Benedict XVI was not making a cheap rhetorical point; he was trying to illustrate the possibility of a tough-minded but rational dialogue between Christians and Muslims. That dialogue can only take place, however, on the basis of a shared commitment to reason and a mutual rejection of irrational violence in the name of God.
The pope’s third point — which has been almost entirely ignored — was directed to the West. If the West’s high culture keeps playing in the sandbox of postmodern irrationalism — in which there is "your truth" and "my truth" but nothing such as "the truth" — the West will be unable to defend itself. Why? Because the West won’t be able to give reasons why its commitments to civility, tolerance, human rights and the rule of law are worth defending. A Western world stripped of convictions about the truths that make Western civilization possible cannot make a useful contribution to a genuine dialogue of civilizations, for any such dialogue must be based on a shared understanding that human beings can, however imperfectly, come to know the truth of things.
CAN ISLAM BE self-critical? Can its leaders condemn and marginalize its extremists, or are Muslims condemned to be held hostage to the passions of those who consider the murder of innocents to be pleasing to God? Can the West recover its commitment to reason and thus help support Islamic reformers? These are the large questions that Pope Benedict XVI has put on the world’s agenda. Men and women of reason and goodwill should be very glad that he has done so.
A Europe that cannot understand its own religion, except as a form of subjective irrationalism, cannot possibly engage another. A Christianity that voluntarily recuses itself from reason cannot sustain a belief in the goodness of its convictions, to say nothing of its truth. A West that abandons a critical dialogue between faith and rational inquiry ceases to be the West. It becomes, in a peculiar way, guilty of the same errors Benedict accuses Islam of making. This is the pope’s teaching, and it requires no apology. Notice that he offers none.
Spanish Muslim leader discourages protests:
He also called on Muslims living in Spain “not to fall into provocations or to be carried away by interests of a suspicious nature.” Herrero said the protest planned for Friday is not “a day of wrath,” as has some in the media have erroneously translated it from the Arabic, but rather “a day of complaining.”
The NYTimes is a little happier, but not much, still hoping the old boy will come around:
Now that Pope Benedict XVI has expressed regret for offending Muslims in remarks he made last week, we hope Catholics and Muslims alike will put aside the pontiff’s ill-considered comments and move forward in a conciliatory spirit.
Muslim leaders need to condemn the specific acts of violence that followed the pope’s speech. Even more important, they must work against the nurturing of grievance that magnifies and politicizes insults, giving them a destructive dynamic.
There are hopeful examples of such leadership. Muhammad Habash, head of the center for Islamic studies in Damascus, acknowledged Muslims’ shock at the pope’s remarks but said that now “it is our turn to call for calming the situation.” The top Islamic cleric in Turkey, Ali Bardakoglu, who had sharply criticized the pope, accepted the apology. He said Benedict’s “expression of sadness is a sign that he would work for world peace.”
The pope and the Vatican can also do more. For the past two years, Benedict has been a no-show at interfaith gatherings in Assisi, begun 20 years ago by his predecessor, John Paul II. Last year, he issued an edict revoking the autonomy of Assisi’s Franciscan monks, a move that was seen as a reaction against the monks’ interfaith activism. On the occasion of this year’s gathering, he issued a statement about religion and peace that was read by an envoy, but his absence spoke louder than his words.
The pope also recently reassigned the Vatican’s former head of interreligious dialogue, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, an expert on Arab affairs, to a diplomatic post in Egypt. According to a report in The Times by Ian Fisher, the move was interpreted by some church experts as reflecting Benedict’s skepticism of dialogue with Muslims. As his unfortunate comments show, the pope needs high-level experts on Islam to help guide him.
In offering his regrets, the pope said that in its totality, his speech was intended as “an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.” In living up to that, he and other top Vatican officials will have to accept that genuine communication cannot occur on their terms only
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