Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The pope's grand strategy?

Here is a fascinating, and I think very plausible, explanation of the pope's comments on faith, reason and violence that so stirred up certain peace-loving adherents of Islam.

Biretta tip to Sacramentum Vitae.

Meanwhile, Dennis Prager scores a direct hit on the pope's critics: Pius attacked for not confronting evil, Benedict attacked for confronting evil.

Biretta tip: Domenico Bettinelli.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this Ochlophobist link, Father!

There have been many things written about what the Holy Father said (including a fair amount of misrepresentation by the MSM).

And there have been many things written about the consequences of his speech.

But this is definitely the most thorough (and compelling) account I've seen yet of "why" he said what he did.

Unlike Canada's Michael HIGGINS, this guy knows the Pope is too intellegent to have been completely blind-sided by the events that occured after his speech. Only the Pope would be able to say for sure, but this guy is mighty convincing...

Anonymous said...

Mark Anthony:

I think you're right about the conspiratorial leanings of many bloggers. (I know I suffer from that at times myself.) But I'm not sure you're being quite fair to Ochlophobist here.

I don't see it suggested anywhere in the post that the Pope suspected violence would result from his statements. I'm pretty sure he uses the notion of "incivility." Is it not possible to imagine that he expected some reaction to his comments, but not this one?

How else should we deal with this comment? "The text he read was one from a previous work of his with one major change - the offensive quote was added."

That's a real stumbling block for me.

And at no point does Ochlophobist suggest that the Pope intended to use "the resultant fear in the West and Orthodox Christianity to drive those communities closer to Rome." He suggests that the speech was designed to remind the Western and Orthodox Churches of their common ground. There is a lot of non-fear-driven common ground.

There is also a great deal of space between being "as wise as serpents" and being Machiavellian. I have absolutely no problem attributing the former to our Holy Father, while stopping far short of the latter.

Fr Martin Fox said...

I admit I didn't read the Ochlophobist link closely; I posted it, based on what I did read at Sacramentum Vitae.

The way I read that excerpt, the pope wasn't being cynical or callous, or in any way immoral. I.e., I don't see the pope "intentionally igniting violence," but not letting what he could foresee, but could not avoid (unless he remained mute), hold him back.

He did what sometimes must be done: he said there was an elephant in the room.

It seems very reasonable, and moral, for Christians to say to secularists: you may lump us in with the Islamists who are coming after us, but they're coming after you, too -- and you might consider that you're better off with the Christians, than with them.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the pope as culpable for the violence done by his haters. That kind of thinking paralyzes and silences him. It makes sense to me that he'd say,

"Sooner or later, the fanatics are going to go ga-ga over something I say -- they tried to kill John Paul; they burned embassies over editorial cartoons -- I have to decide when, and how, to confront this rising peril."

What he actually said was, to me, entirely reasonable, in no way unfair or "insensitive." And the response fully bears out the pertinence of the violence critique!

When one knows a battle is coming, one tries to choose the best ground. Whether this is the best ground, I don't know; but I think that's a reasonable calculation for the pope to make.

Anonymous said...

I think it was an attempt to talk to the moderate muslims if they are out there and give them a chance to step forward in dialog that is sadly missing. Like the secularist who are trying to end the connection of faith and reason, he also sees evil when religion is connected to terror because in doing so it takes faith and reason away for a one true God. I still encourage those who have not heard the take on this at First Things by Father Neuman to do so because I think he is very close to this Pope for many years and he gets it.

Dad29 said...

George Friedman (a geo-political/intelligence analyst in Texas) wrote a column which proposes:

1)The Pope knew exactly what he was saying, and anticipated some sort of reaction;

2)He did it to indirectly support the US' "war on terror," without supporting the war in Iraq;

3)He also had the intention of unifying Europe on a path back towards Christianity.

While I suspect that Friedman's take was "worldly," it is interesting.

Fr. Larry Gearhart said...

UKblogger,

Claiming that religion, per se, leads to war and suffering is to misunderstand both religion and human nature. People will use any excuse whatever to vent anger. Whether or not they cite religion as their excuse is entirely coincidental.

A religion, like Christianity, that preaches very clearly, "Love your enemies." and "Pray for those who persecute you." does not deserve to be tarnished with this brush. Pope Benedict's reference to the elephant in the tent did nothing to put the elephant in the tent.

That said, I am in agreement about the folly of the Iraq war, and the excuse it has given radicals everywhere to see it as a rallying point for a new generation of extremists.

Even our strategy in Afghanistan seems singularly lacking in wit. Instead of making the place safe for democracy, we've managed to make it safe for heroin production.

I am, furthermore, in complete agreement with your principal thesis, "Western world needs to rise above this threat, tackling it from a higher moral standpoint in terms of a peaceful and measured ideological intervention." Unfortunately, the West is ill-equipped to do so, due to its ongoing moral confusion. It is this that the Holy Father's efforts are ultimately designed to correct.

The West's valuing of the artificial control of fertility is a major part of this moral confusion, being inextricably linked with a devaluing of the human person as material only. Neither the view that people are material only (secular humanism), nor the view that people are God's playthings (Islamism), can lift humanity above that which can be manipulated at whim. As a consequence, both neo-Westernism and Islamism subscribe to the dictum, "The ends justify the means." By contrast, genuine Catholicism recognizes the irreducible transcendent value of every human person.