My thoughts on the Pope's statements, and Islam

[bones_IV]

More than happy to oblige you

Truth IS often a bitter pill to swallow. Thats why a little thing called TACT is needed. When you can show me where in the bible Jesus tells the prostitute she’s a whore and is going to hell, instead of the OTHER manner in which he approached the subject, I will begin to listen to you.

What a straw man argument. Did not Jesus tell the samaritan women the error of her way? Of course. He said, “Go and sin no more”. Which is the same thing as saying that, “if you leave the sin unrepented you will go to hell.” My question is who are you to tell the Benedict XVI how to do his job? Not in this case you don’t. I’ll defend Benedict XVI on what he said here, any day. He’ll never retract it.

 

[cathgal]

I could also be presumptous and claim you dont have a grasp of what he said and what he meant.

Bottom line and then I am commenting on this issue

Dont *quote *ancient people to a group of people who you KNOW have the potential to react radically in thought and deed - and then take an easy out and say, those views arent your own. Then you shouldnt have quoted it at all or in the least, QUANTIFY FURTHER what your meaning was. My position is of course, he shouldnt have said it at all. I aint condemning the man, but I aint going to defend him either on this. He’ll survive it, and hopefully be more aware of what his words have the potential to cause. Which brings me to his advisors. I hold them accountable as well if they didnt (which I dont know) try and tell him the possible backlash for what his speech could have caused. Too many people think everything that emits from a Pope’s lips (when he isnt speaking infallibly) are somehow greater than other’s opinions, which mostly I would say, they are on matters of faith, but not always. And I discern this is one of those times, thats all.

Oh what wisdom you have ! If only the Pope has what you got!

So you’re happy to be a coward in the face of Islam. Last I checked, being a coward didn’t help the world to be a peaceful place where Islamic is concerned. Or could it be that the place you live is not threatened by Islamic terrorists. You’re too comfortable in your niche, you forget how dangerous it is to be a non-Muslim in an Islamic world.

 

[bones_IV]

I take that as a compliment!

Gotcha. I misunderstood his qoute.

 

[cathgal]

More than happy to oblige you

Truth IS often a bitter pill to swallow. Thats why a little thing called TACT is needed. When you can show me where in the bible Jesus tells the prostitute she’s a whore and is going to hell, instead of the OTHER manner in which he approached the subject, I will begin to listen to you.

What prostitute are you referring?

For someone so into ‘tact’, why don’t you enlighten us in how you would go about telling the truth to Muslims without offending them.

If you can’t come up with one, then take heed of your ’ elder ’ !

 

[cathgal]

More than happy to oblige you

Truth IS often a bitter pill to swallow. Thats why a little thing called TACT is needed. When you can show me where in the bible Jesus tells the prostitute she’s a whore and is going to hell, instead of the OTHER manner in which he approached the subject, I will begin to listen to you.

What prostitue are you referring?

For someone so into ‘tact’, why don’t you enlighten us how you would tell the truth to the Muslims without offending them.

If you can’t, then take heed of your ’ elder ’ !

 

[Angel_Bradford]

When Mehmet Ali Agca, an Islamic Turkish terrorist, shot Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, Catholics didn’t burn down mosques or kill Moslems. Instead the Holy Father forgave his would-be assassin in true Christian compassion.

Compare his response to that of many Islamic leaders around the world after a remark made by Pope Benedict XVI last week. He quoted an ancient Byzantine emperor who said Islam spreads its message “by the sword” and some of Mohammed’s teachings as “evil and inhuman.”

Many in the Muslim world quickly proved the emperor right. “You will only see our swords until you go back to God’s true faith - Islam,” said a statement issued by a militant group in Iraq called Ansar al-Sunnah.

Another group linked to al-Qaeda warned that the West and the Pope are “doomed.” Some Turkish leaders said the Pope should be tried for war crimes, and, in London, a Muslim called for the Pope’s execution while mobs chanted that he was a Nazi.
The real Nazis are the Islamic leaders who encouraged the Islamic mobs to riot, set fires to Christian churches, even shooting a Catholic nun to death in a hospital in Somalia.

Some Muslim leaders spoke against the anti-Christian, anti-West jihad but they were the lone voices in the wilderness. The loudest Islamic voices continued to throw the proverbial gas on the fire they sparked even after the Pope apologized twice for offending anyone.

The Pope isn’t the problem. The problem is that extreme fundamentalist Muslims are incapable of living on the same planet as the rest of us.

 

[Angel_Bradford]

I could also be presumptous and claim you dont have a grasp of what he said and what he meant.

Bottom line and then I am commenting on this issue

Dont *quote *ancient people to a group of people who you KNOW have the potential to react radically in thought and deed - and then take an easy out and say, those views arent your own. Then you shouldnt have quoted it at all or in the least, QUANTIFY FURTHER what your meaning was. My position is of course, he shouldnt have said it at all. I aint condemning the man, but I aint going to defend him either on this. He’ll survive it, and hopefully be more aware of what his words have the potential to cause. Which brings me to his advisors. I hold them accountable as well if they didnt (which I dont know) try and tell him the possible backlash for what his speech could have caused. Too many people think everything that emits from a Pope’s lips (when he isnt speaking infallibly) are somehow greater than other’s opinions, which mostly I would say, they are on matters of faith, but not always. And I discern this is one of those times, thats all.

I think what people fail to understand is that the Pope was giving a lecture at a university in Gemany. This was not a speech being made on Vatican Radio or T.V.

 

[Walt_Oliver]

FINAL WARNING

Since my first warning was ignored by some of you, after this point, anyone taking a potshot at another poster or writing uncharitably in any way will be subject to disciplinary action, such as standing in the corner for a week.

---

Please be civil and discuss the topic of the thread, not each other. Thank you for your cooperation.

---

Walt

 

[Thekla]

It’s a coward’s way out if you ask me, and Benedict is anything but.

I could argue that a coward hides behind the quotes of others and then when people get mad, blame it on the other guy by saying that he didn’t say it, the other guy did. But I do not consider the Holy Father to be a coward; I now think he made a mistake. Surely if he wanted to chastize Islam he would have done it openly and honestly. I don’t think that was his intent.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I cannot predict the future, but if I trust that the Holy Spirit really is in charge of the Church and its mission, I have to be able to believe that anything that happened in the past happened under the “watch” of the Holy Spirit.

That is part of the faith I have recently found. It was actually a non-Catholic spiritual leader (Deepak Chopra) whose words really focused me on this point. If we are to live perfectly in the present then we have to be completely reconciled with anything in the past.

In another secular program I attended on emotional self-control,
the man suggested a particular mode of self-talk that will cancel out the disabling effects of past wounds. He suggested that when reviewing something that just happened, instead of saying that “it shouldn’t have happened” to say “it HAD to happen that way.” Why did it HAVE to happen that way? Because it did. That may not make any sense to a person who sees many free wills choose unpleasant options, but existentially it is undeniable. It could not have happened any other way, because it didn’t and we can’t turn the clock back. Therefore, with God’s help, the task is not to fix the damage from the past but to learn to completely and unconditionally accept it.

That might be easier said than done. One way I have come up with is challenging myself to take what might appear a disaster and turning it around in many ways, examining many ramifications. The Good News is that with something so widespread practically any human reaction we can think of is going to get implemented somewhere, so even if we come up with a far-fetched argument, chances are we will be at least partially right, and then our faith can take over that if the Holy Spirit is given even a mustard seed of a chance our faith is that He can grow a whole tree out of it, and with multiplication can even go so far as to feed the multitudes. Doesn’t mean we’ll be right or able to predict the future, and maybe we will even think of something so obscure it doesn’t happen anywhere else but in our imagination. But our imagination is exactly the key. If we can imagine that all really does work for the benefit of those who believe, then we must believe that there is some way that even this can be of benefit – even if we don’t know what it is. If we don’t have this imagination, then we need to pray for conversion because the Bible states that all works for the good of those who believe.

Specifically in this case, I’ll just make up one possible scenario of how this may be the greatest positive move the Pope could make. Maybe he regrets having worded it a certain way and maybe he doesn’t, but in a way that’s not relevant because it’s done already and can’t be taken back. Therefore, in order to make the Bible real in our imagination, instead of thinking of all the damage caused, let’s look at the possible good.

Here’s the example. The Pope makes remarks about religions who use violence as their means to spread. Meanwhile, here in Kansas USA where we are comfortably separated from New York City and trade bombings and all that, it’s easy to deny that we really are in any danger of being taken over by an oppressive religious regime at any given time, and therefore are not supportive of any efforts to protect against such. Now along comes the Pope, about whom practically everybody has an opinion one way or the other, and he makes a remark about violent religions. Those of us in Kansas who have had Muslijm coworkers who were perfectly peaceful might think, “oh geez the Holy Father has his foot in his mouth,” but then the interesting part comes when violence breaks out all over the world, confirming that the Holy Father was right.

Of course those who want to oppose the Pope and/or the Church will blame the violence on the reckless words of the Pope, but here is the silver lining. Maybe a few people will see that violence, and the burning of the Pope in effigy, and the vows by Muslims to take the world by force since the Christians cannot, and open their eyes to the fact that these people are a REAL THREAT. Also, to those who have a clue how to follow the logic of the situation, they will realize that the Pope is speaking the truth, and that these people can and will take over if we don’t quit doing everything we can to enable them.

Alan

 

[CocamoJoe]

Regarding John Paul II supposedly stating that Islam is a religion of peace: I think he was wrong. There are instances where I think Pope John Paul II, being a very holy man and philosophically esteemed, was soft. He allowed the Liturgy in the West to become, in my opinion, a travesty; he allowed there to be female altar servers; he kissed the Koran, when visiting a Mosque in the Middle East. The Pope shouldn’t be like the school master in Pink Floyd’s movie The Wall, but he, being responsible for the souls of so many people, should be more willing to punish when the need arises. I think the Pope should let the other Bishops handle their own dioceses, or epharchies, affairs; but, that if a Bishop is acting out-of-hand, the Pope shouldn’t award him with a Cardinals skull cap, as John Paul II did on numerous occassions.

I quote myself, as I haven’t noticed any response to this statement of mine. I’m curious what anyone’s thoughts in regards to the above are.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I quote myself, as I haven’t noticed any response to this statement of mine. I’m curious what anyone’s thoughts in regards to the above are.

I don’t know the background, so my comments will be focused on only one term you used, “punished.”

As far as I know, Christ never punished anybody, suggested that they be punished, or stood by and allowed punishment to take place. That is because Christ taught us a better way than threats of punishments and promises of rewards, the way of love that conquers all.

In fact, the whole reason Christ came to the earth was to REMOVE the punishment that would be our destiny if it weren’t for Him. He TOOK our punishment for us, so if we humans decide to punish one another we are inevitably convicting ourselves if for no other reason, than by the parable of the servant who was forgiven a large debt but then refused mercy to a person who owed him a much smaller debt.

That’s one of the most difficult concepts, it seems, for us to really embrace. We are punished by parents and teachers when we do wrong, scolded by authorities and peers when they perceive on the surface we have done wrong. Christians think it is their God-given duty to dole out punishment and sanctions – even if in the form of angry thoughts or dirty looks – to those who appear to be sinning or otherwise offensive to us.

The Pope may make a lot of mistakes, but failing to “punish” cannot possibly be one of them, for he would surely endure the wrath of God for doing so. Just as Christ canceled out punishment by the use of forgiveness and mercy, too many Christians are eager to use the name of Christ to cancel out mercy and forgiveness by resorting to worldly punishment. In many cases, they even turn to solicit help from legal authorities because they are able to deal out more severe punishments. It is as if we resort to prayer as long as it is about something that is either so out of reach there is nothing else we can do or so vague it can’t be measured, but most of us are brainwashed by our worldly upbringings to automatically assume that any behavior problem can be corrected by reaching for ever-increasing punishment if at all possible – thus bypassing the spiritual approach completely.

As far as the teacher in “The Wall,” I am curious to hear more about that teacher and how it fits into this scenario, because I have never seen the movie but only heard the album many times.

Alan

 

[Eden]

Dont *quote *ancient people to a group of people who you KNOW have the potential to react radically in thought and deed - and then take an easy out and say, those views arent your own.

Did you think Pope Benedict was in a mosque?

The “group of people” to whom the quote was read were academics at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Please advise.

 

[Angel_Bradford]

Did you think Pope Benedict was in a mosque?

The “group of people” to whom the quote was read were academics at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Please advise.

AMEN! . I think that puts a completely different spin on the matter.

 

[cathgal]

I could argue that a coward hides behind the quotes of others and then when people get mad, blame it on the other guy by saying that he didn’t say it, the other guy did. But I do not consider the Holy Father to be a coward; I now think he made a mistake. Surely if he wanted to chastize Islam he would have done it openly and honestly. I don’t think that was his intent.

Read his speech. He didn’t just quote. He was making a point by using the quote. Ask any writer do they ever use quote to make a point. Do you…ever? And why?

Don’t blame the Pope for the Muslims’ reaction. It’s their nature. They need to learn how to handle the truth.

 

[bones_IV]

Read his speech. He didn’t just quote. He was making a point by using the quote. Ask any writer do they ever use quote to make a point. Do you…ever? And why?

Don’t blame the Pope for the Muslims’ reaction. It’s their nature. They need to learn how to handle the truth.

Yes. We can’t dialogue by whistling happy tunes and pretending everything ok. Dialogue is not about making people feel good and compromising beliefs.

 

[Thekla]

Read his speech. He didn’t just quote. He was making a point by using the quote. Ask any writer do they ever use quote to make a point. Do you…ever? And why?

Don’t blame the Pope for the Muslims’ reaction. It’s their nature. They need to learn how to handle the truth.

That is odd because the Holy Father said that the quote from the emperor does not express his (the Holy Father’s) belief.

It seems that people don’t want dialogue with Muslims, but rather they want the Holy Father to call out Islam and to slam the prophet Mohammed in the process.

“It’s their nature?” I think we’ve heard that sort of dismissal made about blacks and women and Jews. The “It’s their nature” argument has been used as a rationale for oppression and racism. And I hardly think that the Holy Father meant to foster that kind of conduct.

 

[gilliam]

That is odd because the Holy Father said that the quote from the emperor does not express his (the Holy Father’s) belief.

It seems that people don’t want dialogue with Muslims, but rather they want the Holy Father to call out Islam and to slam the prophet Mohammed in the process.

“It’s their nature?” I think we’ve heard that sort of dismissal made about blacks and women and Jews. The “It’s their nature” argument has been used as a rationale for oppression and racism. And I hardly think that the Holy Father meant to foster that kind of conduct.

VATICAN CITY, SEP 20, 2006 (VIS) - …

“I chose the theme,” he said, "of the relationship between faith and reason. In order to introduce my audience to the dramatic nature and current importance of the subject, I quoted some words from a Christian-Muslim dialogue from the 14th century in which the Christian - the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus - presented to his Muslim interlocutor, in a manner we find incomprehensibly brusque, the problem of the relationship between faith and violence.

"This quotation, unfortunately, has lent itself to misunderstandings. However, to an attentive reader of my text it is clear that in no way did I wish to make my own the negative words pronounced by the medieval emperor, and that their polemical content does not express my personal convictions. My intentions were quite otherwise: on the basis of what Manuel II subsequently said in a positive sense … concerning the reason that must guide us in transmitting the faith, I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason, go together.

“The theme of my talk was, then, the relationship between faith and reason,” he added. "I wished to call for a dialogue of the Christian faith with the modern world and for dialogue between all cultures and religions. I hope that at various moments of my visit - when, for example, in Munich I underlined how it important it is to respect what is sacred for others - what emerged was my deep respect for all the great religions, and in particular for Muslims who ‘worship the one God,’ and with whom we are committed to promoting ‘peace, liberty, social justice and moral values for the benefit of all humanity.’

212.77.1.245/news_services/pr…iche/e1_en.htm

 

[cathgal]

That is odd because the Holy Father said that the quote from the emperor does not express his (the Holy Father’s) belief.

It seems that people don’t want dialogue with Muslims, but rather they want the Holy Father to call out Islam and to slam the prophet Mohammed in the process.

Still didn’t read his speech eh?

“It’s their nature?” I think we’ve heard that sort of dismissal made about blacks and women and Jews. The “It’s their nature” argument has been used as a rationale for oppression and racism. And I hardly think that the Holy Father meant to foster that kind of conduct.

It is. Show that it’s not if you want to defend them. You do know what ‘nature’ I’m talking about?

 

[Thekla]

Still didn’t read his speech eh?

It is. Show that it’s not if you want to defend them. You do know what ‘nature’ I’m talking about?

If you have an argument to make, then make it. But don’t assume and state things that are untrue as a method of deflection. I indicated way back in Post #69 that I had read the Holy Father’s lecture and I stand by what I said.

Of course I get what you are talking about; it’s hardly a new or original argument. The “It’s their nature” position that you seem bent upon maintaining, has a pretty bad history. After all, we’ve heard it from Christians rationalizing the oppression of Jews, whites rationalizing the oppression of blacks, and men rationalizing the oppression of women. It certainly isn’t new or puzzling; it’s just tired and disappointing.