Muslims Unhappy With Pope’s Address

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I just read about this. Not surprising. It is ridiculous how no one can utter a word against Islam, (in the “PC” world), yet, Islamic groups go on threatening, killing and taking hostages. I’m worried because the Pope is going to Turkey in November.
 
4HisChurch said:
I just read about this. Not surprising. It is ridiculous how no one can utter a word against Islam, (in the “PC” world), yet, Islamic groups go on threatening, killing and taking hostages. I’m worried because the Pope is going to Turkey in November.
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Remember what Jesus said, “Let us be on our way.” And another thing, Our Lady will protect him. No need to be sad.
 
I agree that Turkey seems a dangerous place for the Pope, but its also possible that the trip might get cancelled or postponed. Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey’s state-run religious affairs directorate is opposed to the Pope’s visit. I don’t know how much clout he has, but yesterday’s news gives him a bit more support.
‘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.’
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I realize the Pope was quoting someone else, but he was quoting the Emperor with approval. The Pope didn’t say: Emperor Manual II Paleologos is extreme by today’s standards. He said that this is a good example.

Of course, the example was supposed to support the Pope’s main point about faith and reason. But surely there are less inflammatory examples that could have been chosen.

When I heard the news yesterday, my first reaction was dismay and disbelief. I knew that it would provoke an outcry from Muslims. My second thought was that Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald’s absence is being felt.

The Archbishop had been president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and was a widely respected authority on Islam and Islamic relations. But the Pontifical Council he headed was merged with another Council this past year and he was named apostolic nuncio to Egypt – a job change many saw as a demotion. I am guessing that if he were still on the job, yesterday’s news wouldn’t have included that Emperor’s quote. 😦
 
Dale_M said:
The Archbishop had been president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and was a widely respected authority on Islam and Islamic relations. But the Pontifical Council he headed was merged with another Council this past year and he was named apostolic nuncio to Egypt – a job change many saw as a demotion. I am guessing that if he were still on the job, yesterday’s news wouldn’t have included that Emperor’s quote. 😦
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You are most likely right. It would have been watered down to actually say nothing of importance. Maybe this is why his council was merged and he was given a new job.

Interreligious Dialogue is not about saying only what other religions want to hear. It is about the Truth.
 
ByzCath said:
You are most likely right. It would have been watered down to actually say nothing of importance. Maybe this is why his council was merged and he was given a new job.

Interreligious Dialogue is not about saying only what other religions want to hear. It is about the Truth.
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We need more people to stand up and speek the truth.
 
The Vatican are opposed to Turkey’s membership of the EU.

Could this latest speech ahead of his visit to Turkey be part of BXVI’s strategy to engineer responses from the Muslim world exemplifying their hostility and the essential differences between the Islamic World and Western, Christian (even if nominally in many countries these days) Society?

To put it another way, I don’t think this is just an incidental soundbite by Papa, I think this illustrates a change in the Vatican’s engagament with Islam and a determination to illustrate for the West the massive differences between Christ and Holy Mother Church’s message and mission and that of Mohammad and Islam.
 
212.77.1.245/news_services/bu…NGUA%20INGLESE

This is the Vaticans response to the growing anger.

Quote:
what emerges clearly from the Holy Father’s discourses is a warning, addressed to Western culture, to avoid “the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom” (homily, September 10). A just consideration of the religious dimension is, in fact, an essential premise for fruitful dialogue with the great cultures and religions of the world. And indeed, in concluding his address in Regensburg, Benedict XVI affirmed how “the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures”.
What is clear then, is the Holy Father’s desire to cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue towards other religions and cultures, including, of course, Islam.

In his speech at Regensburg University, the German-born Pope explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith.

Stressing that they were not his own words, he quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire, the Orthodox Christian empire which had its capital in what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul.
The emperor’s words were, he said: “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.” Benedict said “I quote” twice to stress the words were not his **and added that violence was “incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul”. **

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5347876.stm

We all need to take the Holy Father’s lead in condemning violence and working for peace.
 
gonzaga said:
Could this latest speech ahead of his visit to Turkey be part of BXVI’s strategy to engineer responses from the Muslim world exemplifying their hostility and the essential differences between the Islamic World and Western, Christian (even if nominally in many countries these days) Society?

To put it another way, I don’t think this is just an incidental soundbite by Papa, I think this illustrates a change in the Vatican’s engagament with Islam and a determination to illustrate for the West the massive differences between Christ and Holy Mother Church’s message and mission and that of Mohammad and Islam.
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Am I misinterpreting your post, or are you suggesting that the Holy Father is deliberately baiting Muslims?
 
What do people think about the sentiment expressed by a German Muslim official in this quote? (Yes, I know the same reasoning has been applied to so many other Western institutions.).
“After the blood-stained conversions in South America, the Crusades in the Muslim world, the coercion of the church by Hitler’s regime, and even the coining of the phrase ‘holy war’ by Pope Urban II, I do not think the church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions,” said Aiman Mazyek.
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Is this an obfuscation of the issue or a legitimate complaint?

Quote comes from this article:

timesonline.co.uk/article/0,13509-2359541_1,00.html
 
Am I misinterpreting your post, or are you suggesting that the Holy Father is deliberately baiting Muslims?
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Your question is very simplistic.

The Holy Father knew the sort of response the words from Emperor Manual II Paleologos would receive from the Muslim World. It would be naive to suggest he did not. We can specualte on the motives for the decision to quote Emperor Manual II Paleologos.

At face value, the quote seems to suggest the belief of the Byzantine emperor that certain ideologies and beliefs at the heart of Islam are intrinsically wrong and incompatible with God’s divine plan for the world. I think you have to read between the lines though.

You say Papa is ‘baiting’ Islam. I say Papa is engaging with Islam on the basis of doctrine and the idea that Islamic doctrine is corrupt in so far as it glorifies ‘holy war’ in the name of God and other violent Koranic religious based sanctions such as forced conversion.
 
meno said:
What do people think about the sentiment expressed by a German Muslim official in this quote? (Yes, I know the same reasoning has been applied to so many other Western institutions.).

Is this an obfuscation of the issue or a legitimate complaint?

Quote comes from this article:

timesonline.co.uk/article/0,13509-2359541_1,00.html
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Ultimately it’s unimportant what we think. It is (at least in my broad experience) the way many Muslims view Christians. Just as many here view Muslims as terrorists, extremists and religious nutters who are will convert or kill, many Muslims see us (based on our foriegn policy, political double standards, decadent lifestyles and lack of obvious morals) as idolators, war mongers and blood thirsty heathens.

What is important is that we let go of the stereo types and work together to talk and live in peace as human beings- as brothers and sisters- as children of the one true God.
 
It seems that the Pope said what needed to be said, almost any way you want to take it.

Anything the Pope says is going to infame Islam, one way or the other. Tell me something new.

Muslims believe in killing to spread their faith; this has been true from the beginning. They do not believe in religious freedom, although they invoke it to defend themselves. They have no problem with that inconsistency.

Honestly, the most radical of Muslims do not believe in dialog, except their own. “Jihad” is interpreted as “the time for talking is over.”

I admire how fervent they are about their convictions, I just don’t have their convictions.
 
gonzaga said:
Your question is very simplistic.
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It was intended to be a simple, straightforward question. I didn’t want to reply to the post based on a misunderstanding of the writer’s meaning.
gonzaga said:
You say Papa is ‘baiting’ Islam. I say Papa is engaging with Islam on the basis of doctrine and the idea that Islamic doctrine is corrupt in so far as it glorifies ‘holy war’ in the name of God and other violent Koranic religious based sanctions such as forced conversion.
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I did not say the Holy Father is baiting Islam. I asked if that’s the opinion the original poster was trying to communicate.

I believe the Pope to be a man of great courage who says what needs to be said even if it means he’ll be criticized (or worse). He’s in good company, too. When John the Baptist told Herod he was wrong to be in an adulterous relationship, for example, John must have known what Herod’s response was likely to be.
 
Of course, the emperor’s words had a certain relevance in that that’s exactly the mechanism by which the eastern empire, and Christianity within it, were destroyed. Those words are no less true today.

To Islamists, I suppose it is offensive for the Pope, or anyone else, to warn Europe that the consequences of its secularist failure/refusal to acknowledge its Christian roots and to return to them, is not a bland, secular outcome, but an outcome dominated by aggressive replacements that demand servitude. Earlier erstwhile replacements were atheism (Marxism) and paganism (Nazism). In our own time, the most notable is Islam.

Sooner or later, Islamists will try to destroy the Vatican and St. Peters, if they haven’t tried already. This was true before the Pope’s statement, and it is true now. Nothing the Pope can ever say will be satisfactory to them until and unless the Pope acknowledges the “superiority” of Islam and accepts dhimmitude for himself and for his Church.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by gonzaga
Your question is very simplistic.
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It was intended to be a simple, straightforward question. I didn’t want to reply to the post based on a misunderstanding of the writer’s meaning.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gonzaga
You say Papa is ‘baiting’ Islam. I say Papa is engaging with Islam on the basis of doctrine and the idea that Islamic doctrine is corrupt in so far as it glorifies ‘holy war’ in the name of God and other violent Koranic religious based sanctions such as forced conversion.
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I did not say the Holy Father is baiting Islam. I asked if that’s the opinion the original poster was trying to communicate.
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I believe the Pope to be a man of great courage who says what needs to be said even if it means he’ll be criticized (or worse). He’s in good company, too. When John the Baptist told Herod he was wrong to be in an adulterous relationship, for example, John must have known what Herod’s response was likely to be.
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It would seem then that we are in total agreement.

I am both heartened and strengthened by BXVI’s speech.
 
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