{"id":4371,"date":"2006-11-28T07:27:25","date_gmt":"2006-11-28T07:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/11\/on-the-plane.html"},"modified":"2006-11-28T07:27:25","modified_gmt":"2006-11-28T07:27:25","slug":"on-the-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/11\/on-the-plane.html","title":{"rendered":"On the plane:"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Allen reports:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Aboard the Alitalia Airbus A-321, Benedict responded to three questions which had been collected from journalists in advance. The pope did not use notes, and appeared to speak extemporaneously. He apologized at the end for not having time for a full press conference.<\/p>\n

Asked to address Turkey\u2019s European aspirations, Benedict did not directly engage the country\u2019s application for membership in the European Union. He recalled, however, that the modern founder of Turkey, Kemal Attat\u00fcrk, had taken the French constitution as a model.<\/p>\n

\u201cHence at the heart of modern Turkey is a dialogue with European reason,\u201d Benedict said, suggesting that Turkey\u2019s destiny is to integrate European reason with the \u201cIslamic and Muslim roots\u201d of the country, and that Europe and Turkey therefore have \u201creciprocal responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that context, Benedict said that Europe today faces the challenge of cultivating a \u201chealthy secularism,\u201d meaning one that \u201cunderlines and conserves\u201d the differences between the civil and religious spheres, but which also recognizes their \u201ccommon responsibilities.\u201d <\/p>\n

A secularism which totally separates religion from civic life, the pope said, is \u201ca strategy without exit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that regard, Benedict said, Turkey must balance its secular approach with its religious heritage, constructing a society that is \u201copen, tolerant, and with liberty as a fundamental element.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Asked about the significance of his meetings with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Benedict said this is a situation in which \u201cnumbers don\u2019t really count,\u201d referring to Bartholomew\u2019s tiny local flock of perhaps just 2,000 people.<\/p>\n

\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s the symbolic and historical weight [of the office] that matters,\u201d Benedict said. \u201cConstantinople was the second Rome and the seat of the great Byzantine culture. It\u2019s a point of reference for the entire Orthodox world, and therefore for all Christians,\u201d Benedict said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a symbolic importance still today, even if the patriarch does not have a jurisdiction like that of the pope. It\u2019s a point of orientation for the Orthodox world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that regard, Benedict said, his meeting with Bartholomew, bringing together \u201cthe two sister churches of Rome and Constantinople,\u201d constitutes \u201ca very important moment in the search for Christian unity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This symbolic encounter, Benedict said, \u201cis not just empty, but is full of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Don’t forget that you can watch the goings-on at EWTN (with commentary) or without commentary at the Vatican TV site.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Allen reports: Aboard the Alitalia Airbus A-321, Benedict responded to three questions which had been collected from journalists in advance. The pope did not use notes, and appeared to speak extemporaneously. He apologized at the end for not having time for a full press conference. Asked to address Turkey\u2019s European aspirations, Benedict did not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the plane: - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/11\/on-the-plane.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On the plane: - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Allen reports: Aboard the Alitalia Airbus A-321, Benedict responded to three questions which had been collected from journalists in advance. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}