…when Benedict XVI travels to Turkey next week on his first visit to a Muslim country since becoming Pope last year, he is unlikely to cloak himself in a downy banner of brotherhood, the way his predecessor did 27 years ago. Instead, Benedict, 79, will arrive carrying a different reputation: that of a hard-knuckle intellect with a taste for blunt talk and interreligious confrontation. Just 19 months into his tenure, the Pope has become as much a moral lightning rod as a theologian; suddenly, when he speaks, the whole world listens. And so what takes place over four days in three Turkish cities has the potential to define his papacy–and a good deal more.
After Regensburg, the mainstream Italian daily La Stampa ran the headline THE POPE AND BUSH ALLIED AGAINST TERROR. The association with the Iraq war and U.S. interrogation methods must have horrified the Pontiff, if only because it could undermine the church’s honest-broker role in regional conflicts. “It’s easy to say, ‘Go Benedict! Hit the Muslims!’” says Gibson. “But that’s not who he is. He is not a Crusader.” Shortly before Regensburg, Benedict had endured Western criticism for repeatedly demanding a cease-fire after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Angelo Cardinal Scola, a protégé of the Pope’s who edits Oasis, a Church quarterly on dialogue with Islam, says the fact “that radical Islam can turn to violence does not mean we must respond with a crusade.”
time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561120-1,00.htmlHigh-ranking Vatican sources say Benedict will avoid repeating the Islam-and-violence trope in any form as blatant as Regensburg’s. Instead, suggests Father Thomas Reese, a senior research fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown, the Pope may take a less broad-brush approach to the issue by repeating his sentiment from Cologne: “He could say, ‘You, like me, are concerned about terrorism’ and he would like to see Islamic clerics be more up front condemning it.” Once over the hump, happier topics should be easy to find. “Quite frankly,” says Reese, “the Pope and the Muslims are on the same page on abortion. They [agree on] relativism and consumerism, hedonistic culture, sex and violence, Palestinian rights.” Conceivably, like John Paul’s first journey back to communist Poland, Benedict’s simple presence in this Muslim land may speak louder than words.
As posted above, we already know what the similarities are.Rather than focus on differences, the true dialogue between the Pope and Islam, and between secularized societies and Islamic ones, should emphasize our common, universal values: mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy.