POPE’S TRIP TO TURKEY AND APPEAL TO REASON: TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?

Hellenic News of America, PA
March 20 2007

In his trip to Turkey, in November 2006, Pope Benedict the XVI used
all his, and the Vatican’s accumulated diplomatic skills to calm down
the spirits of Muslims, in this nominally "secular" country and all
over the Islamic world, which he had excited earlier.

Thus, the Pope diplomatically waived the Turkish flag upon arrival
and declared his support of Turkey’s bit for membership in the EU,
contrary to his earlier statements. He even placed a wreath on
Ataturk’s tomb, in spite of the fact that this military man and his
predecessors were mainly responsible for the thorough ethnic cleansing
that swept Anatolia clean from its millennia old Christian communities
(Armenian, Syrian, Greek).

He also visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and prayed with the Mufti
on his side, although such visit was not part of the official itinerary
of his Holiness, and seemed to contradict his previous comments about
the violent and unreasonable nature of Islam. For in an academic
speech, which he gave in his Alma Matter, the Regensburg University,
in Germany, he had quoted and commented on the remarks of a Byzantine
Emperor, in such a way that many faithful Muslims had taken offense
by his tactics and reacted violently.

Specifically, the Pope informed his academic audience that the
question of the relation between "faith and reason" was in his mind
lately. Apparently this was the result of his reading of the edition,
by Prof. Theodore Khoury, of a discussion [䩜륮鲝
which the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus had with an educated
Muslim on the merits of Christianity and Islam, some time at the end
of the 14th century (c. 1391). Commenting on "holy war" and the role
of religion in it, allegedly the Emperor had asked: "Show me just
what Mohammed 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."

Apparently, this statement infuriated many of the more than one
billion faithful followers of Mohammed, for whom the Prophet is
the last the best of all prophetic men. Of course, given what had
been going on around Constantinople at that time of siege, and the
continuous wars between Muslims and Christians, since the inception
of Islam in the 7th century, the Byzantine Emperor’s comment was
probably justified. He was about to lose his Empire and its capital,
Constantinople, to the Muslims in a few years (in1453).

So he had no illusions about the historic and warlike nature of
Islam as a religion of violence rather than peace. Islam preaches
peace among the faithful flock of Muslims, but it also sanctions war
against the "infidels," pagans as well as peoples of "the Book." The
Byzantine Emperors had painfully experienced the rapid spread of
Islam in every direction, in the Middle East, in Egypt, in Northern
Africa, and finally in Anatolia, in the Balkans and in South Europe,
for seven centuries (7th to 14th centuries).

Three of the original five Christian Patriarchates (in Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem) had already fallen into the hands of the
"infidels," that is, Muslim militants. Within a few decades from the
time of Emperor’s comment, even the Patriarchate of Constantinople
(which was the real destination of the Pope’s trip to Turkey) was to
have the same fate. In this context, his Holiness has reason to fear
that his fate may be next, as Pope and Patriarch or Bishop of Rome,
if religious violence continues and things get completely out of hand
with a possible and complete failure in the hopeless war in Iraq.

So, Pope Benedict XVI remembered suddenly the forgotten "reason" of
Hellenic philosophy and its role in Christian faith, strengthening
it and spreading it with the word rather than the sword. But this may
come as too little and too late, in the post 9/11 world of terror. As
the revived religious fundamentalism spreads with increased violence,
one can reasonably suspect that the voice of reason is bound to become
weak and its light dim in the darkness of bigotry that may rule the
world once again, as in Dark Ages in the past.

Besides, the Pope of Rome as the head of Catholic Christianity,
is probably not the best messenger to bring the "message of reason"
and non-violence to the Muslims, whether they are militant and fanatic
or even peaceful and thoughtful. The violent and fanatical history of
the Catholic Church clearly shows that Popes, and Bishops generally,
have not been models of rationality and non-violent behavior towards
other faiths or even various other Christian sects. Consider what
they did to Greco-Romans and to temples and statues of their tolerant
and good gods. Think also of what they did to heretic sects, the
Arians, Pelagians, Gnostics, Donatists, Monothelites, Monophysites,
and so forth.

But, as his Holiness knows very well, the great obstacle to reason and
the real scandal to any reasonable communication and accommodation to
the Muslims is the Doctrine of Trinity, the deification of the Son
of God, and the Messiah claim for Jesus. How is he going to explain
this great "mystery" to faithful Muslims rationally? They take their
belief in one true God seriously. They, then, conclude reasonably
that their one God cannot have a son or a daughter (since he has
no wives, anyway). So they conclude, again "rationally," that the
Christians must be totally misguided and even "blasphemous," as I
have argued elsewhere. So, reason as applied to dogma would not help
the situation here.

On the other hand, reason as it may apply to science and philosophic
speculation is a different issue. On this score, at least historically,
the Muslim Arabs have much to show. For centuries, they were
ahead of the Western European Christians, in mathematics and
medicine, navigation and astronomy, etc. They even produced better
commentaries on the Ancient Hellenic philosophers, than their Latin
counterparts. But that is history.

The Pope wants to look to the future and find there a space where
"reason" and faith can meet and engage in meaningful discourse,
so that the three "Laws" (as he called them: Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam) can learn to coexist peacefully. Is that possible?

One should have serious and reasonable doubts about such possibility.

This may be just wishful thinking of a Pope, who faces a serious
problem: European Nihilism vs. Islamic Fundamentalism. Benedict XVI,
like his predecessor John Paul II and the Church which they have led
in the last thirty year or so, had apparently hoped that the collapse
of the atheistic Communism in Eastern Europe would lead to a new era
of revival of the Catholic faith. They probably even dreamed of a
possible return to the Middle Ages, when Scholasticism and the Church
ruled supreme and unchallenged in Christian Europe. Faith and reason
seemed then to work together in serving the interests of Catholicism.

However, their hopes were soon frustrated. Atheism, scientific
skepticism, and moral nihilism are still prominent in the nominally
Christian European Union, which remains apathetic, hyper-trophic,
aging and most ominously sterile. In most European countries these
days the birth rates are lower than the death rates, while the
Churches remain mostly empty in Sundays, in the Catholic and even in
Protestant countries.

This is the exact opposite of what Catholic Leaders had hoped for,
and what has actually happened in Islamic countries everywhere:
serious revival of faith and sustained population growth. Pope Benedict
XVI admires such marvelous outcomes generated "by true faith," but,
unfortunately for him, it in not his Catholic faith. So he faces a
serious problem in this regard. Unlike the Muslims, European Christians
do not live faithful lives. Moreover, given that every European country
has significant Muslim minorities, which experience both these blessing
of God, that is, revival of faith and high birth rate, the Europeans
would be demographically overwhelmed by these minorities who retain
their non-European identities in terms of religion, language, customs,
and "militancy." So, as the war on terrorism intensifies with the
passing of time, it is reasonable to expect that more refugees form
Muslim countries will seek refuge in the open, socially compassionate
and faithfully weak EU. They may even take possession of countries
that connect with the Mediterranean Sea, shared by Christian and
Muslims over the centuries.

Thus, the present Pope’s sudden "appeal to reason" may be just too
little and too late to save him or his successors in the throne of
Saint Peter from having the inglorious fate of the Patriarchs of
Constantinople. They may become one day in the near future prisoners
in the Vatican, as the others have been in the Phanar for centuries.

We do not know the details of what transpired between Pope Benedict
of Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and New Rome in
their face to face meeting in the Turkish Istanbul. But it would not be
surprising if they meditated philosophically also on the ironic turns
of historical time and their possible common fate as Christian Leaders.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the followers of
the "last and best" Prophet, the situation is exactly as it was
supposed to be. For the new revelation of the Holy Koran came to set
the record straight, that is, to bring the Christians (Orthodox,
Catholic, and Protestant) back to God, the one and only true God,
Allah the Great. His command to all infidels was, as the Byzantine
Emperor clearly understood it, "surrender or perish." He refused to
surrender and he perished.

Reasonable or not, this militant command has served the Muslims
historically very well. It made them, among other things, rulers of
Christians for a whole millennium. Will they change their victorious
tactics because a Byzantine scholar or a Catholic Pope may object
to it? There is good reason to doubt that they will do so, and act
accordingly.