Muslim Baiting

What in heaven’s name just happened? Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech in Germany this week quoting an obscure 14th century Roman Emperor’s derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. There is no surer way to incite anti-Christian passions among Muslims. The Pope has to know that. The Vatican quickly issued a clarifying statement maintaining no offence was intended but it’s hard to believe it wasn’t deliberate. Muslims cannot abide criticism of the Prophet. I know it, the Vatican knows it, Christians and Jews have known it from the earliest days of Islam. To cross that boundary is to pick a fight. It works every time.

Absent the offending passages, and they are brief, the lecture stands as an erudite analysis presented by a scholar to a group of scholars concerning the inherent tension between and among human logic, the scientific method, faith, and theology; more the stuff of a debate on Darwinism that on the politics of radical Islam. Benedict was speaking to the faculty at the University of Regensburg where he once taught. He reflected on the proper role of the theology department in a modern university. He titled his lecture “Three Stages in the Process of De-Hellenization,” a reference to modern attempts to cleanse biblical scholarship of Greek metaphysics. He discussed Islamic and Christian philosophers’ attempts to reconcile an omnipotent God with the constraints of human concepts of reason. It’s all pretty esoteric except for the reference to Muhammad.

In choosing the particular emperor to quote the Pope put the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in an awkward spot. Presumably that was also deliberate. I’ll bet I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I know who would recognize the name Manuel II Paleollogus, but Turks and Orthodox Christians recognize it. His capital is now Istanbul. It was the last remnant of an ancient empire that would disappear altogether only a few years later. The Patriarch is still there because of the city’s history as seat of the Orthodox Church. The Pope had been set to visit him in November in an ecumenical outreach that would now appear doomed. It is unlikely he will still be welcome in a predominantly Muslim city. More is the pity. It is one of the few places where Christians and Jews have stood arm in arm with Muslims in opposition to terrorism.

It’s hard to see why the Pope would do this. We’ve only just gotten past the brouhaha over Danish political cartoons depicting Muhammad in unflattering light. This lecture was ostensibly to renounce violence in the name of religion and to promote dialog based on reason, but no dialog will take place with Muslims in any forum where Muhammad’s name is to be disrespected. I’d like to take the Vatican at its word and view the remarks in an inoffensive context. But having studied the text of the Pope’s prepared address I can’t find an inoffensive context. I have to go with the Muslims on this. It was a purposeful provocation. Maybe it has something to do with Benedict’s opposition to Turkish membership in the European Union. He has been voicing objections since he was Cardinal Ratzinger.

Whatever his motives the Pope has pointed up one more time just how far we have to go in learning how to get along with Muslims, and they with us. Westerners aren’t about to sit quietly by when Muslims engage in barbaric behavior towards us, no matter how sensitive they are. They are going to have to accept criticism, but I wasn’t expecting to hear this from a modern Pope.