[DIM]15pt[=DIM][G]B-737 della Turkish Airlines dirottato: nessun passeggero ferito, i dirottatori vorrebbero consegnare un messaggio al Papa [/G][/DIM]

[DIM]15pt[=DIM][G] Roma, Italia - Lo scalo brindisino chiuso al traffico aereo
[/G][/DIM]

[DIM]11pt[=DIM][C](WAPA) - Secondo le prime e frammentarie notizie che giungono dall’aeroporto di Brindisi e dal resoconto in diretta dei canali satellitari della Cnn e della Ntv turca, i dirottatori sono due e sono di nazionalità turca. Secondo quanto ha dichiarato alla Ntv il presidente della compagnia aerea Candan Karlitekin nessuno dei passeggeri e dei membri dell’equipaggio avrebbero subito minacce e tutte le persone a bordo sono illese. Dai primi resoconti, il B-737 della Turkish è stato dirottato sui cieli della Grecia dove è stato intercettato da quattro velivoli dell’Aeronautica militare ellenica che hanno scortato l’aereo civile fino ai confini dello spazio aereo nazionale. Subito dopo è stato "preso in consegna" da due nostri F-16, decollati dall’aeroporto di Trapani, che lo hanno scortato fino a Brindisi. A bordo dell’aereo vi sono 106 passeggeri e sei membri di equipaggio. I due dirottatori hanno fatto sapere di voler consegnare o leggere un messaggio diretto a Papa Benedetto XVI e di volersi immediatamente dopo arrendersi. Non si conosce il contenuto del messaggio ma il sospetto più che fondato è che i dirottatori non vogliono che il Papa compia la sua visita pastorale nel paese turco.
[/C][/DIM]



I'm so scared!!! Papa, watch out!!!

Hijacked Turkish plane
forced to land in Italy

BRINDISI, Italy, Oct. 3, 2006 (Reuters) - Two Turkish hijackers seeking to send a message to Pope Benedict seized a Turkish passenger plane flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul on Tuesday and diverted it to Italy.

Turkish television quoted police sources as saying the plane had been hijacked in protest at a planned visit to Turkey next month by the Pope, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.

There was no confirmation of this report.

The Vatican said the Pope was being kept informed about the hijacking but preparations for the trip were still going ahead.

Brindisi airport in southern Italy, where the Turkish Airlines plane, carrying 107 passengers and six crew, landed after being escorted down by Italian jets, was immediately closed.

Italian police said they had begun negotiations with two Turkish citizens who they said had hijacked the plane.

"We're starting negotiations," said the head of Brindisi aviation police, adding that the airliner was on the airport tarmac surrounded by police, military and fire brigade vehicles.

"As far as we know, the hijackers want to talk with Italian authorities to send a message to the Pope," a spokeswoman for Italy's civil aviation authority ENAC told Reuters.

After a short period of talks, ENAC said it believed the hijackers were ready to surrender.

Turkish Airlines told Turkish NTV television they had established contact with pilot Mursel Gokalp, who said the passengers were all well and the hijackers were unarmed.

The pilot also said the aircraft's doors were locked and no one had yet boarded the plane. CNN Turk's Web site said of the 107 passengers, 80 were Albanian and five Turkish.

HIJACKERS "COOPERATIVE"

"Negotiations are going ahead to free the passengers. The hijackers' attitude is quite cooperative so it seems things are relatively calm inside the plane," Salvatore Sciacchitano, a senior official from the Italian civil aviation authority, told Sky Italia TV.

Turkish Airlines issued a statement saying:

"Two people forced our TK1476 flight from Tirana to Istanbul to divert to Italy .... It landed without problem at Brindisi airport in Italy. Our passengers do not have any problems."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Holy See was following developments closely and that preparations for the November 28-December 1 trip to Turkey were going ahead.

The Pope has said he regrets the offence caused by the speech, in which he used a medieval quotation linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence, and said he was misunderstood. But Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been one of those who have said they are not entirely satisfied with the apology.

Private broadcaster CNN Turk reported that Italian officials had refused the hijackers' request to send a message to Pope Benedict. The report could not immediately be confirmed.

A Greek Defense Ministry official said the plane had entered Greek air space at 5:58 pm (1458 GMT) and was soon escorted out by the Greek fighter jets.

"The plane sent the (coded hijack) signal twice while in Greek air space. Four Greek fighter jets took off and accompanied the plane as it left Greek air space toward the Italian city of Brindisi," the Greek official told Reuters.

The Italian air force later said it had intercepted the flight, which then landed at Brindisi.

Benedict is due to visit Ankara, Istanbul and the ancient site of Ephesus as a guest of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer from November 28 to December 1.

Benedict upset mainly Muslim but officially secular Turkey even before becoming Pope by publicly opposing Ankara's bid to join the European Union.

A number of planes have been hijacked to or from Turkey in the past decade, either by Kurdish rebels or hijackers with Chechen or Islamist sympathies.

(Additional reporting by Philip Pullella in Rome, Karolos Grohmann in Athens and Ankara bureau)


The story with a few more details, from AP:

By MAX FRIGIONE
Associated Press Writer

BRINDISI, Italy - Two Turks protesting Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Turkey next month hijacked a Turkish Airlines jet carrying 113 people from Albania to Istanbul on Tuesday, and it landed safely in this southern Italian coastal city, officials said.

The hijackers, who were unarmed, told authorities they were prepared to surrender, said Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines' board of directors. He said no one aboard the Boeing 737-400 was injured.

Istanbul Deputy Gov. Vedat Muftuoglu also said the hijackers had agreed to give themselves up.

Lights were out on the tarmac, and a fire truck carrying Brindisi airport's chief of security had pulled up near the jet.

Albanian lawmaker Sadri Abazi, who was aboard the plane, told News24 in Tirana in a brief cell phone call that his fellow passengers were shaken but safe.

"Of course there is panic around, people are afraid, no information at all, but no one has been injured. They (the hijackers) are both at the pilots' cabin and only one of them came out briefly," Abazi told the TV station.

Asked about the hijacking, a Vatican official said he expected no changes in Benedict's plans for the visit. The official, who asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the issue, said an official Vatican announcement that the trip would take place Nov. 28-Dec. 1 would be made soon.

[Omitting here 2 paragraphs of standard rerferences to Regensburg and the Muslim reaction]

Turkish Airlines officials had spoken to Capt. Mursel Gokalp and co-pilot Yavuz Yilmaz, who told them the hijackers were not armed and that the passengers were not in any danger, said Ali Genc, a spokesman for the carrier.

Muftuoglu said the hijackers stormed the cockpit about 15-20 minutes after takeoff from the Albanian capital of Tirana.

"They told the pilots that they wanted to carry out an act to protest the pope and that they wanted the plane diverted to Rome and that they (the pilots) should not resist," he told Turkey's CNN-Turk television.

Karlitekin said the hijackers declared that the would surrender "the moment they hijacked the plane," which carried 107 passengers and a crew of six. Most of the passengers were Albanians, Genc said.

The Turkish captain issued an alert that his plane was hijacked and he was contacted by Greek air traffic controllers at 5:55 p.m. (10:55 a.m. EDT), 15 miles north of Thessaloniki, Greece, said Dimitris Stavropoulos, spokesman for Greece's Civil Aviation Authority.

The captain told the Greek controllers: "I have two undesirable people who want to go to Italy to see the pope and give him a message," according to Stavropoulos.

The plane later contacted Italian air traffic controllers and asked to land in Brindisi, and it was escorted to the ground by two Italian military jets, according to Nicoletta Tomiselli, a spokeswoman for the Italian air traffic agency ENAV.


Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser and Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Greece, and Maria Sanminiatelli in Rome contributed to this story.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/10/2006 20.50]

...are posted in the thread "In attesa del viaggio in Turchia"...We are following the whole events in real time!!!

TRANQUILLA, JOSIE! No one was hurt, the men were not armed, and they are now in the hands of authorities. Meanwhile, it's night time in Italy. The wire services - even the English ones - are on top of the story. If there is any significant development, we will hear of it - from you up there in the main forum, or from the Net directly.

If anyone can get the New York Times online, please see if you can post this story:

A Coming Papal Visit Focuses Anger Among the Turks
By IAN FISHER
Published: October 3, 2006
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey in late November is likely to be a flash point for a surprisingly broad array of issues....

[I've explained before that after I changed my ISP, I have been unable to get myself recognized by that system under either name/ISP. Soryy...]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/10/2006 21.02]

British Skye News ( TV) has just announced that the plane's hijacking has nothing to do with Pope. The highjacker does not want to do military service or something. I couldn't follow the last part - my phone rang!

CROTCHET - The Skye news appeared to be partly right, as the following Reuters update shows. The one hijacker who has surrendered so far is apparently Christian and wants the Pope's help to avoid military service in Turkey!
----------------------------------------------------------------

Turkish hijacker, looking to Pope,
gives up in Italy
By Fabio Serino

BRINDISI, Italy (Reuters) - A Turkish hijacker seeking to communicate with Pope Benedict seized an airliner flying from Albania to Istanbul on Tuesday and diverted it to Italy before surrendering.

All 107 passengers and six crew left the Turkish Airlines plane at Brindisi airport after brief negotiations, Italy's aviation authority ENAC said, adding that police were checking to see if other hijackers were among those on board.

"At the moment one person has given himself up. We are trying to verify whether there was a second hijacker on the aircraft," Antonio Lattarulo, head of ENAC for Brinidisi in southern Italy, told Reuters.

Turkish TV initially quoted police sources as saying the plane had been hijacked in protest at a planned November visit to Turkey by the Pope, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.

But Turkish media later identified the hijacker as Hakan Ekinci, a convert to Christianity who had written to the Pope in late August, asking for his help to avoid compulsory military service in Turkey.

Turkey's Dogan News Agency said Ekinci was born in the western Turkish province of Izmir in 1978 and had been convicted of fraud and pickpocketing. It said he traveled to Albania in May this year and did not return.

Dogan quoted from his letter: "Dear Pope, I am Hakan Ekinci. I am a Christian and I never want to serve a Muslim army. I wish you to help me as the spiritual leader of the Christian world."

The Vatican said the Pope was being kept informed about the hijacking but preparations for the November 28-December 1 trip to Turkey were going ahead.

NO WEAPONS

The airliner was flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul when the hijacking occurred in Greek airspace at 5:58 p.m. (1458 GMT). The Boeing 737 was escorted by Greek and Italian military aircraft to Brindisi.

A spokeswoman for ENAC told Reuters during the hijack: "As far as we know, the hijackers want to talk with Italian authorities to send a message to the Pope."

Passengers gave conflicting accounts of whether there was more than one hijacker, but they said they saw no weapons and that no violence was used.

Sadri Abazi, an Albanian member of parliament who was on the plane spoke by mobile phone to an Albanian television station. "As he was leaving the plane, one of the hijackers apologized to the passengers in English and Albanian," he said.

CNN Turk's Web site said that, of the 107 passengers, 80 were Albanian and five Turkish. Turkish media reported that several beauty queens, from countries including India, were on the flight, returning from a pageant in Albania.

Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yildirim gave one suggestion of how a hijack could have occurred without the use of weapons. "We have information that they showed a package, but we haven't confirmed that," he told CNN Turk.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Well, the information about the hijacker so far all comes from Turkish sources, so I would take it with a grain of salt. They say he is Christian but add that he was convicted for fraud and pickpocketing. (If he were Muslim, would they have volunteered that?) And how would they know he wrote the Pope and what the letter said?

Also remember, the deputy governor of Istanbul, who made the first official reaction to the hijacking, ahead of everyone, said it had been carried out "to protest the Pope's visit. "

Double dose of salts, please!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/10/2006 23.36]

Here's a translation of a thoughtful commentary, shared with us by Emma in the main forum, from the online Italian news-and-opinion journal libero on the Regensburg lecture. In it, the writer points out that so much attention has been given to the citation about Islam made by the Pope that even most Western opinion-makers have glossed over the fact that the lecture was really aimed mainly at the West!

I suppose, yet another form of willful denial by Western intellectuals and political leaders of the real, imminent and openly trumpeted threat to Western civilization from Islamic extremists, as well as the vulnerability and weakness caused by decades of relativistic posturing, political correctness and a wrong concept of multi-culturalism.

The writer or his editor was too generous with the title given to the piece. It wasn't a failure of understanding as much as deliberate avoidance of the points the Pope raised, because to confront them would be to confront themselves and their weakness!
----------------------------------------------------------------


Europeans who criticize
the Pope's speech
did not understand it
By Sandro Fontana

With the passing days and weeks, the power of Pope Benedict's Regensburg lecture has not ceased to impress and fascinate. Except the fools and those acting in bad faith who have chosen to focus on polemics with Islam rather than examine and challenge the dominant culture of the West {as the Pope did].

Certainly, a Church that under John Paul II more than once asked forgiveness of all mankind for having imposed Christianity in the past during historical episodes like the Crusades and the Inquisition, can only reaffirm forcefully its own aversion to every tendency to impose any faith by force.

But it was mainly with regard to the West itself that Papa Ratzinger expressed his greatest concerns. He once again showed his profound anguish for a Europe that - although it welcomed and developed Christianity "in its most effective form" over the centuries - is also the continent that gave rise to "a culture that constitutes the most radical contradiction not only to Christianity but to the moral and religious traditions of mankind."

Not only because the barbarism of the 20th century totalitarianisms was born in the heart of Europe, but because today it is in this continent where the lethal modern diseases of unbelief, relativism and atheism are most widespread.

It is in the face of this new barbarism that Ratzinger's reflections [long before Ratzinger became Pope and chose the name Benedict, by the way] have continually seen an analogy to the age of St. Benedict, when Europe, after centuries of barbarian devastation, appeared devoid of moral and civic orientation.

But it was precisely in such "a time of dissipation and decadence" that men like Benedict of Norcia knew to submerge themselves "in the most extreme solitude" and then come out in the open to build Montecassino, Benedict's 'city on a hill' where, in the words of Ratzinger, Benedict and his monks succeeded "to put together from the ruins the forces from which they built a new world."

But, the analogy is not that close! Unlike Benedict of Norcia who could address himself to men who had a common Christian vision of life, Papa Ratzinger today leads a Church that has suffered for centuries a steady assault from cultural tendencies and practices that specifically aim at the exclusion of the divine presence from the human community.

That is why this Pope wishes to stop this secular assault and cast his own challenge within this very culture against its so-called rationalistic practices.

He aims to expose all the contradictions that today render ever more uncertain and poweless every hypothesis that is simply 'rational' and totally unanchored by absolute and transcendent certainties.

Therefore he has not hesitated to maintain that "Christianity is the religion of Logos" and that it is necessary to live "a faith that comes from creative reason and is open to all that is truly rational."

In short, the Pope affirmed in Regensburg that man's reason can be supported by faith and vice-versa, and that reason cannot be defined only as scientific reason.

"In the Western world, " he emphasized, "the dominant opinion seems to be that only positivist reason and the forms of philosophy deriving from it are universal."

But man must return to faith, using reason, and to reason, having faith.

"The courage of opening oneself to the breadth of reason, not a rejection of this breadth, must be on the agenda for a theology committed to contemplating biblical faith when it engages the issues of today," he said.

Unfortunately, the Pope's grave challenge to engage 'the whole range of reason' was answered by our fearful rationalists with accusing the Pope of having offended Islam!

In short, in their defense of the dogma of reason, they have ended up destroying reason itself by aligning themselves with fanaticism and violence.

libero 3.10.06

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/10/2006 1.39]

---

Scritto da: TERESA BENEDETTA 03/10/2006 21.00
If anyone can get the New York Times online, please see if you can post this story:

A Coming Papal Visit Focuses Anger Among the Turks
By IAN FISHER
Published: October 3, 2006
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey in late November is likely to be a flash point for a surprisingly broad array of issues....

[I've explained before that after I changed my ISP, I have been unable to get myself recognized by that system under either name/ISP. Soryy...]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/10/2006 21.02]

---

Members of the Orthodox patriarchate in Istanbul preparing last week for a news conference by
their leader, Bartholomew. Some Turks fear that the Orthodox Church will try to carve out a city-state similar to the Vatican.
Pope Benedict’s planned visit next month is adding to the tension over this issue, and over recent remarks that seemed harshly critical of Islam.


A Coming Papal Visit Focuses Anger Among the Turks
By IAN FISHER
Published: October 3, 2006

ISTANBUL, Sept. 30 — A novel was published here in May, winning more notoriety than sales, called “Assassination of a Pope.”

It was inspired not by the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman in 1981, but by the trip to Turkey of his successor, Benedict XVI, who is coming to this overwhelmingly Muslim country in late November primarily to meet the Orthodox patriarch, who lives in Istanbul.

Benedict was far from loved here even before his speech in Germany two weeks ago quoting a medieval commentator who called aspects of Islam “evil and inhuman.” But his visit, and the book, play on one of Turkey’s deepest fears: that the secular and unified Turkish state could begin to dissolve if the Orthodox patriarchate tries to become a sort of Vatican, a state within a state.

The pope apparently did not grasp fully that his words would hit Turkey even harder than those other Muslim countries where the reaction was violent. The anger in this nation that uncomfortably bridges West and East — with a strong recent tug from Islam — is far from over, and not just among the religious.

His words, secularists, government officials and religious figures agree, hit spots already bruised. And so his visit is likely to be a flash point for a surprisingly broad array of issues, from matters as global as relations between Muslims and Christians, and as strategic as Turkey’s aspirations to join the European Union, to the tense and difficult local question of the nation’s minorities, including the fewer than 5,000 Greek Orthodox Christians, who complain that Turkey has yet to grant them full rights.

“Such circumstances make the visit more interesting, necessary and important, more than in any other moment,” the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, titular head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, said in an interview with a handful of reporters.

It is not lost on Turkey, deeply aware of its imperial past, that the conversation the pope quoted in his speech took place here: the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, during one of the Ottoman sieges before the Christian empire crumbled and Constantinople became Istanbul, recorded a conversation in 1391 that he said he had had with a “learned Persian.” The topic — Christianity vs. Islam — has not yet ended.

“He said, I quote, ‘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,’ ” the pope said.

Despite the detour into Islam, most of the pope’s speech concerned the relationship between faith, reason and a criticism of the West. But after a loud, angry and at times violent reaction among Muslims, the pope expressed his regret several times for being misunderstood, saying he never meant to offend Islam.

Still, here in Turkey, even after the protest has died out elsewhere, the pope’s remarks remain headline news.

“The pope is both a political and religious figure,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an economic conference here. “But this person spoke in a way that is unfitting even for us politicians.”

Mr. Erdogan is not an ordinary politician: He is a the leader of a party with deep roots in Islam, and so his reaction reflects the more religious viewpoint in Turkey, a nation where Islam is considered on the rise, even if it is spared the extremism of many other countries.

But for many here, the speech marked the official turning of another important Western institution, the Vatican, against them, after years in which they felt Pope John Paul II was at least sympathetic to Muslims.

“If Western leaders of this kind are shutting the door, we are feeling very lonely, and prey to reactionary and nationalistic forces,” said Dogu Ergil, a political science professor at Ankara University. “Turks are increasingly feeling that they have no allies, and so be it.”

Mr. Ergil said such alienation had already curbed enthusiasm inside Turkey for joining the European Union, which he said could slow the pace of reform, and ultimately tilt Turkey away from the West.

The pope’s comments also angered other secularists, who took the pope’s speech as a kind of patronizing lecture from a flawed parent, condemning all Muslims for the sins of a few.

“He could have said, ‘Look, all religions have some problems with violence, either today or in the past,’ ” said Ali Carkoglu, who is secular and a professor of social sciences at Sabanci University in Istanbul. “But this kind of stereotyping is like ‘Muslims have a problem and we don’t.’ At the end of the day, he didn’t take any responsibility for his own religion.”

And so to Turks, the pope’s comments carried both religious and political overtones, each connected to what many here see as larger divisions after the Sept. 11 attacks — between East and West, and Christianity and Islam — as well as about where Turkey will ultimately find itself.

As the world has become more polarized, with Europe fearful of more terrorist attacks and worried about Muslim immigrants, Turkey has found one of its long-term ambitions, to join the European Union, on no sure path to reality.

Part of the problem is Turkey’s own halting pace toward reform, on issues like freedom of expression and religion. Part of it is Europe’s fears of integrating a nation of 70 million, almost all Muslims, many of them poor.

There was never a high expectation here for Benedict, who as a cardinal opposed Turkey’s entry into the European Union on the ground that it had always stood “in permanent contrast to Europe.” And he frequently stresses Europe’s Christian roots.

The status of Christians in Turkey has long been difficult. Greek Christians in Turkey have dwindled to fewer than 5,000, from an estimated 180,000 in 1923.

Much of the difficulty revolves around the Orthodox patriarchate, which is forbidden by law to train new priests or to elect a new leader who is not a Turkish citizen.

For nationalists, the fear is that the patriarchate wants to declare itself a Vatican-like state, which they worry could aggravate a clamor for independence among other minorities, especially the Kurds. Benedict is now under particular scrutiny among nationalists, who are likely to interpret any expression of support for the Orthodox as some broader recognition of the patriarchate as an entity apart from Turkey.

“This would be a second mistake,” said Oktay Vural, a leader of the Nationalist Movement Party. “I don’t think the pope should intervene in this kind of discussion.”

The pope’s expressions of regret over his speech have officially mollified Turkey — and political and religious leaders say that he is welcome here, and that he will be safe. But hopes are high for him to make some dramatic gesture to mend the rift between Christianity and Islam, or to make the fuller apology for his speech that many Muslims around the world have been demanding.

“It is impossible to say that his statements so far have been sufficient or that they’ve eliminated all concerns,” the nation’s top Muslim cleric, Ali Bardakcioglu, said in response to questions sent in an e-mail message.

With the pope’s visit just two months away, he said, “Time is necessary for the mistake to be completely forgotten.”

THANKS, IMLADRIS! And for that beautiful picture, to boot. I can see now we ought to start having PRIMERS ON TURKEY soon, so that the visit, if it comes through, will find us better prepared to appreciate both the ecumenical aspect of it, which is its primary reason, and the diplomatic and political part, which is, alas, inevitable.

I, for one, have been wondering how the Holy Father will refer to Turkey's EU application, as he must at some point during the visit. Surely he hasn't changed his mind - his arguments in 2004 when he said what he said are even more valid today.

Turkey's problem is that no one seems to want it - it has never really been looked on kindly by the other Muslim states because it chose to be a secular state back in the 1920s, it is not an Arab state, and it has no oil revenues, plus it has a separatist problem with the Turkish Kurds, who could conceivably team up with the Iranian Kurds (who have oil), and rattle the pieces of the Mideast yet another time.

Turkey is a fairly modern state but poor, and increasingly repressive of human rights for its minorities, which is surprising in a country that wants to be seen as modern enough to be on a par with the rest of Europe.

This last point has been the biggest practical drawback lately to its EU bid - and I have not read anywhere that the Turksih govenment has replied to the recent EU commission report decrying the terrible state of human rights in Turkey. (What can they say, after all? No, it's not true? Or: Well, yes, sorry, but we'll do something about it - and right now! Huh! That will be the day.)

And Europe has more cause to worry, now that the Muslim influence has become so strong that Premier Erdogan has had to play the Muslim card again and again to stay in office (he first played it in a big way when Turkey promised, but ultimately refused, to allow Coalition forces to open a northern front in Iraq by going through Turkey in 2003), And his recent comments about the Pope have been laced with a contempt worthy of Bin Laden.

How ironic of him to say that "even a politician" would not have said what the Pope said - meaning, I suppose, Muslim politicians who want to keep the Muslim vote. The irony being that he does not see how improper it is for a head of government to speak in such disrespectful and contemptuous terms of a head of state, which the Pope is, let alone being head of 1.2 billion Catholics!

So if anyone finds material that appears to be a good description or analysis of Turkey today (and of the Greek Orthodox Church) - you may post it in PAPAL TRAVELS, for the time being. I sort of feel like it's tempting fate to open a VOYAGE TO TURKEY thread at this time!

And by the way, please remember, the Pope will be visiting Verona on October 19 for the once-in-a-decade national conference of the Italian Church.
----------------------------------------------------------------

WEDNESDAY MORNING, 10/4/06
UPDATE ON TURKISH HIJACKING:
NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POPE!

That hijacking of a Turkish Airline plane to Italy now seems to have nothing at all to do with the Pope or his planned visit to Turkey. However, the story is more confused than ever, according to his AsiaNews report from Ankara, which I'm posting here as a sort of P.S. because I don't think we will be reporting on this story again in this thread.
----------------------------------------------------------
4 October, 2006
TURKEY
A strange hijacking

The affair of the Turkish airline is clouded in confusion. There is contradicting information about the number of the hijackers, a knife and the reasons for the action.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – Hasan Hekinci, the man arrested yesterday by Italian police for hijacking a Turkish Airlines flight, did not want to protest against the visit of Benedict XVI to Turkey.

The clarification came from a member of the Ankara government, the Transport Minister, Binali Yildrim, who said the hijacker was seeking to escape military service, asking for political asylum in Italy after vainly seeking refuge in Albania.

While the 105 passengers of the Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 reached Istanbul this morning, the original destination of their journey, the whole affair is taking a decidedly confusing shape.

In the first place, no one knows precisely whether Hekinci was working alone or if, as has been claimed, he had an accomplice who got mixed up with the other passengers at the time of the hijacking. Today, some witnesses said three passengers seemed to "know" the hijacker.

How the hijacking was carried out is also a matter of some perplexity. Apparently, the hijacker made threats with a knife, but this weapon was not found on the airline or on the people who were on board.

No less strange is the information given about what happened. When the hijacking was under way, Al Jazeera said there were two hijackers protesting against the papal visit. The Albanian MP, Sabri Abazi, who was on board, also mentioned two hijackers and a knife.

Meanwhile, the governor of Istanbul, Muammer Guler, said the hijacker was a convert to Christianity and an army deserter, who had failed to return to barracks after receiving permission for a day off. Shortly afterwards, someone discovered that Hekinci was a conscientious objector, who wanted to send a letter to the pope not to protest, but to ask for help.

Today, Turkish conscientious objectors (not recognised by national legislation, which punishes them with up to five years in prison) distanced themselves from Hekinci.

"Using conscientious objection as an instrument of violence is unacceptable," said one of the leaders of the movement, Ugur Yorulmaz. Until a few weeks ago, however, a message from the hijacker featured on the same site, asking for solidarity. Today, Yorulmaz said it was taken off because Hekinci’s conduct "revealed imbalance."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/10/2006 15.00]

Apropos that commentary from libero a few posts above, ZENIT had this recent interview with Fr. James Schall, who wrote one of the best instant commentaries I ever read about the Regensburg lecture shortly after it was delivered - the commentary I would have written if I had the academic competence to do it - and before the outbreak of controversy (which I posted in the ...VOYAGE TO BAVARIA thread).

This is one Western intellectual who did not miss the point at all. Oh, and if only all high-profile Jesuits could think straight about the Church and the Pope like Father Schall!
----------------------------------------------------------------


God as Logos, Allah as Will:
Father James Schall on
Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address

WASHINGTON, D.C., OCT. 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The "unreasoned" reaction to Benedict XVI's recent speech at the University of Regensburg has proved that his point needed much attention, says a U.S. scholar.

Jesuit Father James Schall, professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University, is author of "The Life of the Mind: On the Joys and Travails of Thinking" (ISI Books).

He shared with ZENIT why he thinks the Regensburg lecture was liberating and imperative, and how the reaction to it highlighted the modern disconnect between faith and reason.

At Regensburg, Benedict XVI highlighted the Christian understanding of God as Logos. How does the idea of God as Logos differ from an Islamic conception of God?
The Holy Father posed the fundamental question that lies behind all the discussion about war and terror. If God is Logos, it means that a norm of reason follows from what God is. Things are, because they have natures and are intended to be the way they are because God is what he is: He has his own inner order.

If God is not Logos but "Will," as most Muslim thinkers hold Allah to be, it means that, for them, Logos places a "limit" on Allah. He cannot do everything because he cannot do both evil and good. He cannot do contradictories.

Thus, if we want to "worship" Allah, it means we must be able to make what is evil good or what is good evil. That is, we can do whatever is said to be the "will" of Allah, even if it means doing violence as if it were "reasonable."

Otherwise, we would "limit" the "power" of Allah. This is what the Pope meant about making violence "reasonable." This different conception of the Godhead constitutes the essential difference between Christianity and Islam, both in their concept of worship and of science.

Your newest book is entitled, "The Life of the Mind: On the Joys and Travails of Thinking." In what way is the life of the mind a participation in the Logos of God?
Aquinas says that truth is the "conformity of the mind with reality." This means that a reality exists that we do not ourselves make. It is a reality that cannot be "otherwise" by our own will. It also means that God established what is, not we ourselves.

Thus, if we are to know the "truth," which is what makes us "free," it means that we know what God created, is what it is. We rejoice to know the truth that we did not make. The wonder of what is, elates us.

If Allah is pure will, then anything that is, can be the opposite of what it is, so that nothing really is what it is. It can always be otherwise.

Is Benedict XVI's discussion of "faith and reason" different from John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et Ratio"*?
[*'Fides et ratio' was the first encyclical I ever read - and only after Benedict became Pope, because he referred to it so often in many of his interviews and writings as Cardinal, and I came away with the distinct impression that it was as much Ratzinger's work as Wojtyla's!]

I am not aware of much difference. "Fides et Ratio," as I tried to show in my book, "Roman Catholic Political Philosophy," is itself a defense of philosophy. But it recognizes that faith is also a guide to philosophy. Not all philosophies reach the reality that is.

Both Pontiffs are concerned that faith directs itself to reason, and that reason is a reality that is not invented by the human mind. We did not fabricate the mind we have that thinks. We are to use it. We invent neither it nor reality.

Both Popes hold philosophy to be possible and available to every person. But they also recognize that some philosophies cannot defend either faith or reality. This is the problem with the "voluntarism" of classical Islamist philosophy. This same philosophy exists in the West, as Benedict indicated.

Indeed, the Regensburg lecture was directed as much at the West as at Islam on this score. Those who justify abortion follow the exact same philosophical position that the Pope saw in the medieval Muslim thinker from Cordova.

Benedict XVI argued that the synthesis of Hellenistic and Hebrew thought is present as early as the Old Testament wisdom books, but reaches its fullest expression in the Gospel of John. Why is this position important for the Church in what Benedict XVI calls the "dialogue of cultures"?

Father Schall: The fact that Benedict referred to a "dialogue of cultures" shows that he had more than the West and Islam in mind; China and India are also in his scope. The Pope is clear that the command to Paul to go to Macedonia was itself providential.

Indeed, like John Paul II's trip to Poland, Benedict's visit to Regensburg is providential. Both aimed at the crucial problem of our time. We forget that the papacy is not just another human power, though it is also human. It is uncanny how the contemporary world, to its own surprise, continually finds itself watching the papacy.

The Pope says that reason is now also an element of faith. He does not mean that it ceases to be reason. That is why he, as a Pope, gave a "lecture," whose only public claim was its own intrinsic reasonableness. Of its very nature, a lecture demands not passion but reason to grasp what it says.

When within days after the lecture, storms swelled all through the Islamic world, with lots of objections in the West -- including in Catholic circles -- it was clear that Benedict's address was not read for what it said.

It was not translated immediately into Arabic in leading Muslim papers. Most read only snippets in the West. The spirit of an academic lecture, to present the truth of what is, was violated.

The Muslim world, I suspect, is beginning to have second thoughts about its unrestricted reaction to this address. Its actual reaction did not prove the Pope was "insensitive" or "insulting." Rather it proved that his point needed much attention, just as he intended.

Benedict XVI's speech was also a criticism of the Western world; it should have found many receptive ears among Muslims. Yet, the speech has been widely criticized and denounced, proving the point the Pope was trying to make about reason for the dialogue of cultures. Does this spell doom for Benedict XVI's project?

My own opinion is that Benedict was not surprised by these reactions. Indeed, I suspect it is precisely this unreasoned reaction that has made his point so clearly that no sane mind can deny it. It was a point that had to be made.

It could not have been made by the politicians, who in fact did not make it even when they needed it. Politicians talked about "terrorists," as if a more fundamental theological problem was not at issue. Until this deeper issue was spelled out, which is what the Regensburg lecture was about, we were doomed.

This address is probably one of the most liberating addresses ever given by a Pope or anyone else. As its import sinks in, those who were unwilling to consider what it was about will find themselves either embarrassed -- if they are honest -- or more violent, if they refuse the challenge of reason.

Make no mistake about it: This address illuminated, more than anything that we know, the problems with a modernity based on an explicit or implicit voluntarism that postulated that we could change the world, our nature, our God, according to our own wills.

The Western media have often taken Benedict XVI's words out of context and stoked the flames of Islamic aggression. How does the cultural dominance and hostility to the Church by the mass media affect its ability to participate in the dialogue of cultures?
There can be no "dialogue" about anything until the basic principles of reason are granted both in theory and practice. Chesterton remarked on the fact that those who begin to attack the Church for this or that reason, mostly end up attacking it for any reason.

What is behind the attack on reason or the refusal to admit that God is Logos is already a suspicion that the Church is right about intellect and its conditions. We have no guarantee that reason will freely be accepted.

Von Balthasar said that we are warned that we are sent among wolves. We are naive to think that Christ was wrong when he warned us that the world would hate us for upholding Logos and the order of things it implies.

But Benedict is right. He has put the citizens of world on notice that they are also accountable for how they use or do not use their reason. No one else could have done this. The fact is, the world has wildly underestimated Benedict XVI precisely because it would not see the ability he displays in getting to the heart of intellectual things.

In the end, all of this is about "the life of the mind." Both reason and faith tell us so.

----------------------------------------------------------------

WOW! is all I can say.

Pope set to meet Austrian, Polish, Italian, Iranian leaders

Oct. 03 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) has scheduled a number of meetings with visiting heads of state during the month of October, including a private audience with the former president of Iran.

After holding the number of private audiences to a minimum during the summer, the Holy Father will have a fuller calendar after his return to the Vatican this week.

On October 5, he will meet with Austrian President Heinz Fischer, who is likely to convey a formal invitation for the Pontiff to visit Austria. Pope Benedict has already indicated that he hopes to travel to Austria in September 2007, for ceremonies marking the 850th anniversary of the Marian shrine at Mariazell.

On October 12, the Pope will receive Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski took the reins of the Polish government in July, two months after the papal visit to Poland.

On October 16 it will be Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi making his first visit since taking power in May, succeeding Silvio Berlusconi. The head of Italy's new center-left government had indicated some impatience in arranging a papal audience.

Late in October-- the most likely date is October 26-- the Pope will meet with Mohammad Khatami, the Islamic cleric who was president of Iran from 1997 until 2005, when he was succeeded by Mahmoun Ahmadinejad. The former Iranian leaders will participate in an October 27 seminar at the Gregorian University on how Christianity and Islam can handle the challenges of secularism, modernism, and democracy.

Looking ahead to November, the Pope is scheduled to meet on November 6 with Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom (whose country is currently experiencing political turmoil), and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

This interview appeared in the 9/26/06 issue of Avvenire but I somehow missed it. I am translating it because the interviewee is what we might call a moderate Muslim, and by virtue of his position, is also rather influential. The interrview was conducted right after the Holy Father met with Muslim ambassadors and representatives of Italian Muslims in Castel Gandolfo.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Interview with
Sheikh al-Nokari of Lebanon
By Camille Eid

"It was a praiseworthy initiative which closes the case and clarifies the circumstances. It would not be bad if the Holy Father consulted periodically with the Muslim ambassadors to the Holy See and with Muslim religious authorities."

The words were said by Sheikh Mohammed al-Nokari, chief of staff of the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, and also a professor of Islamic studies at Beirut's St. Joseph University [where Fr. Samir K. Samir also teaches}.

Here is the rest of the interview:

The Pope cited Nostra aetate and called it the Magna Carta of Islamic-Christian dialog...
I will be direct. I was among those who was perplexed when Ratzinger became Pope. His positions about Islam were very well-known. But then, I took part in the first general audience as a member of the Islamic delegation, and I was very pleased to hear him say that he wished to continue the dialog with Islam.

I was happy to see the new Pope folowing in the footsteps of his great predecessor and the indications suggested by the Second VAtican Council which he cited in his speech yesterday (9/25).

Benedict XVI has defined the dialog between the two religions as "a vital necessity for our future." Do you share this view?
This is something truly new. We hope to see this judgment translated into a major role assigned to the VAtican organisms that are concerned with the dialog between Islam and Christianity.

The Pope made a reference to "common experiences" in which Muslims and Christians already are working together. How do you interpret that?
I cannot not think of the Lebanese experience. John Paul II was right when he called Lebanon "the nation of message." This experience of dialog I know from my daily work as a professor at a Jesuit university.

In my course on "Education for Dialog," I not only have Christian and Muslim students, but even a Christian professor. When he speaks about Christianity, I become his pupil, and vice-versa. The coexistence between Muslims and Christians is the basis for the existence of Lebanon, and we Muslims would reject the monopoly of the country by anyone from whichever religion.

How do we avoid exploitation of each other's words in the future?
I proposed last year a sort of "SOS FOR DIALOG" - something like a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the schools and universities, but even for the states themsevles, that would act to nip in the bud any crisis that appears to be developing between our religions.

In Lebanon, for instance, there are committees for dialog among professors. But there is an enormous need for such committees with priests, bishops and Muslim sheiks together. Or even a travel agency which could organize visits and seminars among Christian and Muslim clerics would be useful. I experienced something similar in India last year, and I found it very useful in making solid connections.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/10/2006 14.11]

October 02, 2006
Pakistani jihad group issues fatwa: kill the Pope
Pope Rage is not over. The Western press forgets about these things, but in the Islamic world, they continue to simmer. "LET Issues Fatwa to Kill the Pope," from the International Terrorism Monitor, with thanks to LGF:

Acting on behalf of the International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People, which is headed by Osama bin Laden, the Markaz-ud-Dawa (MUD) of Pakistan, which is the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), is reported to have issued a Fatwa calling upon the Muslims to kill Pope Benedict XVI for a recent speech of his delivered on September 12,2006, which has been projected as anti-Islam by Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist organisations of the world.
2. The issue of the MUD fatwa came a few days before the latest video message of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No.2, in which he has made a severe attack on the Pope.

3. A report on the the MUD Fatwa to kill the Pope has been carried by the Pakistani journal "Ausaf" in its issue dated September 18,2006. It has reported as follows:

"Pakistan's Jamaat-ud-Dawa has issued a Fatwa asking the Muslim community to kill Pope Benedict for his blasphemous statement about Prophet Mohammad. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa has declared death to Pope Benedict and said that in today's world blasphemy of the Holy Koran and the Prophet has become a fashion. The leaders of the Jamaat were speaking at a Martyrs' Islamic Conference in Karachi. Prominent Jamaat leader Hafiz Saifullah Khalid said that in the present circumstances, jehad has become obligatory for each Muslim. Muslims are being declared terrorists and our battle for survival has already started. The Muslim world has rejected the Pope's apology and decided to continue protests and demonstrations in big cities. The Pope's apology is just a drama and no political leader has any power to pardon him. It is part of a crusade initiated by the US in the name of terrorism. Instead of accepting fake apologies, Muslims should realise Europe's enemity towards Islam and Muslim Ummah should prepare itself to defend its faith. Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki said the West and Europe have started a campaign against the Holy Koran and the Prophet and have abused jehad. We should take appropriate steps to deal with the champions of crusade. It is time for Muslim leaders to open their eyes and understand that the West had never been a friend of the Muslims and will never be so."

4. In his video message disseminated through the Internet on September 29,2006, Zawahiri called Pope Benedict XVI a "charlatan" and stated that the Pope "accused Islam of being incompatible with rationality while forgetting that his own Christianity is unacceptable to a sensible mind."

5.The LET has secret cells in the UK and France, but there is no confirmed information of any LET activity in Italy so far. It is likely that the task of executing this Fatwa might be entrusted to one of its cells in the UK or France.

6. The US State Department categorises the JUD as well as the LET as terrorist organisations....

4 October, 2006
VATICAN
Pope: one can testify to faith
without sensational works


Vatican City (AsiaNews) – One can testify to faith without realising sensational works, but personal involvement is needed. The teaching delivered by Benedict XVI today, during the first general audience since his return from Castel Gandolfo, was entirely spiritual, dedicated to the apostle "Nathaniel-Bartholomew".

Multi-coloured umbrellas covered a crowd of 40,000 people in St Peter’s Square on a day marked by some rain and slight hoarseness for Benedict XVI, who was smiling and appeared to be in good shape.

Continuing his portrayal of those who were closest to Jesus, the pope said: "The figure of St Bartholomew, notwithstanding the scarcity of information about him, stands before us to tell us that adhesion to Christ can be lived and testified to even without the realisation of sensational works. It is Jesus himself who is and remains extraordinary; we are all called to consecrate our life and death to him."

Benedict XVI recalled the depiction of Bartholomew in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, with skin in hand. From the story of Bartholomew, the pope suggested two fundamental pointers.

One is that "freedom of God surprises our expectations, by being found right where we did not expect it" and the other is that "in our relationship with Jesus, we should not content ourselves with words".

As revealed by the words of Philip to Nathaniel, "come and see", said Pope Ratzinger, "our knowledge of Jesus needs above all a living experience. The witness of someone is certainly important because it starts with the announcement that reaches us through one or more witnesses, but then we ourselves must become involved in a more personal relationship."

And one should never "lose sight of neither one nor the other" of the divine and human dimensions of Jesus. "If we proclaimed only the heavenly dimension of Jesus, we would risk making him an ethereal and evanescent being and on the contrary, if we only recognised his collocation in history, we would end up by neglecting his divine dimension which is actually what qualifies him."

Before the audience, the pope blessed, at the foundation of the Basilica of St Peter, a statue dedicated to St Genoveffa Torres Morales.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It's been 4 hours since the GA, and I have been unable to access the BOLLETTINO sub-site on the Vatican site, so I do not have the Italian text to translate yet.

Also, it seems now the Turkish hijacking yesterday had nothing to do with the Pope or his planned visit to Turkey at all. I posted the update a few posts above as a P.S. to some comments I made about Turkey, as the story has turned out to be quite peripheral and possibly totally irrelevant to the Holy Father and his visit.

As for the fatwas, we expected this from the get-go. But, as we know, any deranged person or fanatic would not even need a fatwa to attempt what to us is unthinkable. And certainly, all the loud and public threats made by Al-Qaeda and such after Regensburg were not couched as fatwas at all but as plain and simple threats. Besides, Regensburg or not, the Pope being who he is - and whoever he is - is obviously one of the prime targets for anyone who hates the West and Christianity (the other obvious target being the American President.)

So, we can only continue to pray for the safety, security and overall well-being of the Holy Father, and for enlightenment on the part of would-be evildoers.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/10/2006 15.14]

Officials play down impact
of hijacking on pope's Turkey visit
by Gina Doggett


ROME (AFP) - Italian and Vatican officials have sought to play down the impact of the hijacking of a Turkish airliner on Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to Turkey next month

Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, speaking before a special session of the Italian Senate, admitted Wednesday: "We all had in mind the pope's visit to Turkey in the coming weeks" as the drama unfolded Tuesday.

Amato said the November 28-30 trip to mainly Muslim Turkey would "surely present delicate security problems," but added: "It is difficult to see in this episode (the hijacking) something that will aggravate these security problems."

The unarmed hijacker, 28-year-old Hakan Ekinci, is reportedly a convert to Christianity and a conscientious objector who wrote to the pope in late August seeking his help in avoiding military service, which is obligatory in Turkey.

He was initially reported to have carried out the hijacking to protest Benedict XVI's planned Turkey trip, but turned out instead to be an army deserter who was being deported from Albania, where he had unsuccessfully sought asylum, according to Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler.

Ekinci, who deserted in May while on a one-day furlough from his Istanbul garrison and fled to Albania, is also seeking asylum in Italy.

He was charged late Tuesday with "hijacking and abduction of persons," his lawyer Vita Cavaliere told AFP.

Ekinci, described in Turkey as "mentally imbalanced" and said to have a criminal record, appeared before a magistrate but no date was set for a hearing into the merits of the case, she said.

"We will determine our defense strategy after this hearing," she added.

Turkish news agency Anatolia, quoting police, reported that Ekinci was convicted of using a fake ID card on two occasions in 2003 and had spent time in jail for bank fraud.

At the Vatican meanwhile, the pope made no mention of the hijacking during his first weekly Wednesday audience in Saint Peter's Square after returning to Rome from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

But Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Vatican "ministry" for culture and inter-faith dialogue, was quoted in Wednesday's La Repubblica newspaper as saying: "Predictions cannot be made and it doesn't make sense to use reason to analyze irrational events. But the (pope's) trip has to be made, there is no doubt."

Benedict XVI, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, sparked a furore across the Muslim world last month over a speech he made in Germany linking violence and Islam.

The pope has repeatedly apologized [NO, HE HAS NOT!] for unleashing the storm of protest through the remarks, which cast a pall over the planned trip to Turkey, his first visit to a Muslim country -- though a strictly secular once -- since being elected pope in April 2005.

Benedict is already seen in Turkey as the anti-Turkish pope for opposing Ankara's drive to join the European Union as "a grave error ... against the tide of history" when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Deepening the sense of foreboding, a novel was published in Turkey in May titled "Assassination of a Pope -- Who Will Kill Benedict XVI in Istanbul?" The author, Yucel Kaya, reportedly told Turkey's Catholic leadership that the book merely captured the mood of the country.

Pope Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, survived an attempt on his life by a Turkish Muslim, Mehmet Ali Agca, in Saint Peter's Square in 1981.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Additional background information on Turkish politics from the Italian newspapers today. The perspective is somewhat different from that in the New York Times article posted above:

Says Il Foglio about the hijacking-

It was an action that was far from professional, indecipherable, more desperate than dangerous, according to initial reconstructions, but it fits into the tense internal poltical situation in Turkey.

Yesterday's Turkish papers had played up a challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party from the commander of the Turkish armed forces, General Buyukant, who acused Erdogan's government of "encouraging the activities of fundamentalist groups."

It was the latest signal in the start-up to a difficult electoral campaign for a new Parliament in the spring of 2007. It is expected that Erdogan's Islamic government will have to contend with the influence of the military which is strongly supporting secular parties, who were too fragmented in the 2002 elections that brought Erdogan to power.

In a country shaken by a resurgence of separatist attempts by the Turkish Kurds, by a long series of attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, by the assassination of Don Andrea Santoro and a growing Christianophobia, the openly Islamic government of Erdogan has aroused deep opposition from parties which are not now in Parliament.

Turkey's bid to join the European Union is not being helped by the markedly Islamic voice of Erdogan's government, which has led to discontent not only among the top brass of the armed forces (which is constitutionally bound to defend the secularity of the State) but also in the social, industrial and financial sectors.

The violent protests last February against the Mohammed cartoons and the unusually harsh criticism by Erdogan and his allies of the Pope after Regensburg, triggered by the highest religious authority in Turkey (which is a government position), have alarmed the generals and the secular parties.

The coming visit of the Pope to Istanbul to meet the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew II simply adds to these tensions. AsiaNews reports that two days ago, Turkish newspapers played up threats made by AlQaeda-like groups against Turkish citizens who would show any signs of welcoming the Pope.

The hijacking - despite its amateurism and the confusion surrounding it - is therefore seen as just another sign of the profound uneasiness that prevails in that country of 70 million.

From Il Velino:

The hijacking has reopened questions on the timeliness of the Pope's visit to Turkey.

Although Benedict's election was obviously received coldly in Ankara, the formal invitation to visit Turkey was extended to him on September 15 this year by the Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, "in recognition of the efforts shown by Pope Benedict to strengthen dialog and tolerance among religions."

This declaration by the head of state was considered very significant. Necdet Sezer has the reputation of being a man above partisanship, but above all, he is known to be secular.

Well aware of the dificult relations between the Erdogan government and Patriarch Bartholomew (who had originally invited Pope Benedict), Necdet Sezer understood that an explicit invitation from him to the Pope would force Erdogan to accept the visit, especially in view of the formal opening of hearings on Turkey's bid to enter the EU this week.

The invitation was, of course, initially contested by Erdogan's deputy premier, Mehmet Ali Sahin, who said briefly, "We think it is inopportune."

The newspaper recalls what it was like in John Paul's time:

The Vatican was always cautious about invitations to the Holy See from the government in Ankara. In November 1979, John Paul II made an unofficial trip to Istanbul to meet with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Almost ten years later, the Turkish Prime Minister Tugut Ozal, visiting unofficially at the Vatican, told the Pope in English: "We would be very happy to see you visit Turkey again." Relations with Ankara had been distant because the government did not (and still does not) recognize the Catholic Church as a juridical entity in Turkey.

In September 1994, John Paul II said in a message to the Turkish bishops conference: "We must hope that a solution can be found to the serious question of recognition of the civilian status of the Catholic Church in Turkey."

In 1995, John Paul II told the incoming Turkish ambassador to the Holy See, Samih Belen: "I must underscore the commitment of religious leaders to greater understanding among religions through a dialog that should grow in a spirit of mutual confidence," while affirming the necessity for Turkey to join the European Union. [HMMM! Surprise!]

"One cannot but rejoice," he said, "at your government's commitment towards full participation in a Greater Europe of nations and peoples, by putting in place political and economic institutions which will favor the spiritual and material wellbeing of individuals as well as the entire human community," he concluded.

But obviously, even this did not change Ankara's policy towards the Catholic Church (or the Orthodox Church, for that matter, insofar as granting the Churches juridical status).

[So what did John Paul think when, years later, Cardinal Ratzinger openly declared his personal opposition to Turkey's membership in the European Union?]

In 1998, Turkish Premier Suleyman Demirel, through his Foreign Ministry, invited the Pope to visit Turkey during the Jubilee Year of 2000. Nothing came of it.

Nor did John Paul act on an explicit invitation from the Turkish bishops in February 2001. He told them that the question of juridical recognition of the Catholic Church was still on the table.


And here's the take of Corriere della Sera in an editorial that started out strangely by saying that if the hijacker was Christian, then that should 'sweep away prejudices against Islamic extremists' [HOW? WHY?] and would show that there is 'a madness cutting horizontally across ' religious lines! [ON THE BASIS OF ONE INCIDENT WHERE NO ARMS WERE EVEN USED AND NO ONE WAS HARMED?] The point it wanted to make was that 'the security of the Pope (in Turkey) could become an acute problem'. [Well, DUH!]


..The Pope's visit will take place in a country where relationwhips among religions have become the escape valve for a crisis of identity connected with the bid to join the European Union and relations with the United States. The tensions grew after the contested citation made by the Pope in Regensburg...

(Notwithstanding the Pope's clarifications) the reactions by some Turkish officials were among the harshest, revealing a profound uneasiness. Prime Minister Erdogan used very offensive terms against the Pope. And his hard line against the Turkish military over how to combat fundamentalism shows unresolved internal political issues.

One gets the feeling of a government under pressure from public opinion that is frustrated at the lengthy process of gaining admission to the EU, further pressured by radical Islam, and convinced that Benedict XVI has not changed his mind about his personal opposition expressed in 2004 to Turkey's entry into the EU.

[The reference to problematic relations with the USA takes into account that President Bush has expressed his support for Turkey's bid to join the EU, but the US is also believed to support the guerrilla movement of the Turkish Kurds, which Turkey sees as a threat to its territorial integrity.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/10/2006 17.38]

The Reuters headline may sound negative but it's not. One has to go back to Square One to start off on the right footing! The vaunted 'dialog' that has taken place so far has been more cosmetic than real, because one cannot dialog genuinely without honesty (blunt, if need be) - and reason. A basic take-home lesson from Regensburg!
----------------------------------------------------------------

Cardinal Lehmann:
Vatican-Muslim dialogue
back to square one
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor


PARIS, OCt. 4, 2006 (Reuters) - Vatican relations with the Islamic world must be re-started from square one because Muslims insist on misinterpreting Pope Benedict's recent comments on Islam, Germany's top Catholic cardinal said in an article on Wednesday.

Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Catholic Bishops Conference, accused Muslim critics of running a campaign against the Pope and said the Pontiff had nothing to apologize for.

The blunt comments from Lehmann, whose rich and influential church has close ties to the German-born Pope, seem to have been sparked by an unusual call from the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) for him to retract his words.

The OIC call came a day after Benedict had received Muslim ambassadors to the Vatican and repeated his regrets for any misunderstanding of his September 12 speech in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor saying Islam was evil and violent.

"These open or hidden threats have to stop," Lehmann said in the weekly newspaper of his Mainz diocese.

"Obviously we have to start at square one because we're not talking here about important contents of a necessary dialogue, but about the fundamental requirements for one to succeed.

"There is freedom of religion and speech in our civilization. The Pope can also be criticized. But there are elementary rules that apply for factual and fair contacts with each other and with clear statements," he wrote.

"One cannot constantly repeat completely unfounded misunderstandings when the texts are so clear."

The dispute over Benedict's use of a quote sharply critical of Islam has further strained Vatican ties with Muslims who already knew he has spoken in the past against Turkey's entry into the European Union because of that country's Islamic roots.

Benedict's repeated protest that he did not agree with the quote has not convinced Muslim critics who say he has still not gone far enough to undo the damage they feel he has done.

Some accuse him of undoing years of bridge-building by his predecessor. "When John Paul was pope, there was no problem for Muslims," commented Cemal Usak, a Turkish Muslim activist. "Pope Benedict may not like Islam but he has to respect Muslims."

[I would show respect to an interlocutor by assuming he is man enough to listen to some truths, harsh as they may be, just as I would .]

"A FULL-BLOWN CAMPAIGN"

Lehmann noted that Benedict's speech in Regensburg during a visit to his native Bavaria evoked no critical reaction at first, and journalists had no questions about it at a news conference the cardinal gave after the Pope left Munich on September 14.

"Only a few days later did a full-blown campaign from outside begin," he wrote, calling it "astounding" that critics should repeatedly say the Pope had insulted Islam and Muslims.

Lehmann's article echoed a statement last week by the bishops he leads complaining some critics had tried to escalate the dispute with "ever new charges, demands or even threats."

"The Catholic Church and many people in our country and around the world, who respect and defend the right of free speech, will not be bullied," the bishops' conference said after its meeting in Fulda last week.

The German bishops, an influential voice at the Vatican because of their church's financial power and theological depth, also repeated Benedict's frequent calls for Muslim countries to give their Christian minorities equal rights.

Meeting shortly after a Berlin theater canceled a Mozart opera for fear it might prompt Muslim protests, the bishops also expressed concern about self-censorship over religion.

"We are concerned that fear of religiously motivated violence is spreading, not only in Germany, and leading to a direct or indirect limitation of free speech," they said.

Tucked in way below in Sandro Magister mega-post's today on two opposing views of the Regensburg lecture [posted in the threade REFLECTIONS ON ISLAM] is this item which should have been big news but wasn't! Apparently it was an AsiaNews report, but I missed it. And as Yahoo's round up of news on the Papacy and the Vatican, for some strange reason, only taps into mainstream media, the reporting of Catholic news services like AsiaNews gets overlooked.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Among the Muslim reactions to Benedict XVI’s address in Regensburg, one in particular must be pointed out: that of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the most authoritative and respected guide in Shiite Islam, in Iraq and elsewhere.

The secretary of the Vatican nunciature in Baghdad, monsignor Thomas Harim Abib, told the agency “Asia News” that Al Sistani’s official representative visited him on two occasions to express friendship and solidarity with Benedict XVI, precisely when the protests from much of the Muslim world were raging against him.

Al Sistani’s representative accepted the explanations given by the nunciature, and gave assurance that he would communicate these to all of the Shiite Iraqi communities, expressing esteem for the Holy See, “which has always been close to the people of Iraq.”

The representative of the Grand Ayatollah expressed the desire to go to Rome to visit Pope Benedict XVI.

Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani uses great care in formulating his rare declarations. In 2004, he issued a striking position statement defending the Christian minorities in Iraq, and firmly condemning attacks against churches:

---

In The Name of Allah The Merciful The Most Compassionate


As part of the cycle of criminal acts witnessed in beloved Iraq, targeting its unity, stability and independence, a number of Christian churches in Baghdad and Mosul were viciously attacked - leading to tens of innocent victims falling dead and wounded as well as the destruction of many public and private properties.

While we disapprove and condemn such abhorrent crimes and see the necessity to consolidate efforts and cooperation by everyone – government and people – in order to stop attacks against Iraqis and root out the attackers; we stress the need to respect the rights of Christians and other religious minorities. Among these rights are their right to live in their country, Iraq, in peace and security.

We ask Allah The Almighty, The Omnipotent, to protect all Iraqis from harm and misfortune and to bless this beloved country with security and stability, He is All Hearing and [He] Answers Prayers.

Office of Ayatullah Seestani – Najaf

15 Jumada al-Thani 1425
2 August 2004

---

NB: The statement above is from the Grand Ayatollah's website.

Here is a translation of an editorial in the 10/05/06 issue of Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference.
--------------------------------------------------------------

The silence of the powerful
leaves the Pope 'exposed'
By Davide Rondoni

The coup de theatre that was the hijacking of a Turkish Airlines plane the other day - without tragic consequences but raising so many apprehensions - presented anew the question of the public image that Benedict XVI has today.

The young Turkish hijacker is said to have wanted to address the Pope with a personal plea - declaring himself to be a Christian and a conscientious objector wishing to assert his right not to serve in an Islamic army.

Beyond this personal case, a delicate and decisive game is being played out in Turkey today - as this newspaper has documented - in which Turkey's armed forces, fundamentalist forces, NATO and the European Union each have their own stakes.

Some would have the nation follow the path of demcoracy and respect for human rights, other would insist on Turkey's admission to the EU without much need to verify its readiness (in terms of certain basic preconditions for admission).

It is well-known that Christians in Turkey do not have it easy living there. The debate and the tensions which currently revolve around Turkey and within Turkey itself could be said to be representative of the complexity of the world we live in.

And once again, the Pope in Rome finds himself being the nerve center of events, performing such function on the international scene. Even at great inconvenience. But it is necessary to understand his situation well. Because Benedict XVI's position, although it may seem one of weakness, is actually the strongest.

A person like Joseph Ratzinger appeared destined to a life of calm study, of intellectual service. But today, it is his figure as universal pastor which is at center stage and under everyone's scrutiny.

The disparate self-serving protests from the world of Islamic fanatics have painted him as a 'charlatan' who is contemptuous of Islam, while other Muslim representatives - often far more authoritative than the fanatics - have found in the Pope's words a ferment which could be useful to the future of their faith. Others still would see in him the official defender of so-called Western supremacy.

But that's not what the Pope is about. Both Islamic fundamentalists as well as professional opponents of Islam would use him to their own ends. But his concern is of a different nature. It doesn't feed off hate or defiance.

He continues to address himself to individuals and to peoples in speaking up for freedom and the use of reason. In so doing, he responds credibly and closely to the needs of individuals and peoples, on an international stage where too many powerful leaders seem to want only the undoing of someone else, or tear each other to pieces in the name of power.

Fundamentalists of every kind would use the Pope as a fifth column useful to their own wars. They find themselves disoriented and react in unseemly ways as we have seen these past few months, even among Catholic fundamentalists.

In his statements and in his evident personal joy, the Pope demonstrates that the Christian faith is the fulfillment of what humans desire in life. That is why he exalts the value of freedom and human reason, which are to be considered treasures of humanity. God wants men and women to be whole and genuine, not clones or puppets devoid of freedom and individual judgment.

In his personal, patient and well-grounded testimony for the faith, the Pope gives voice, among others, to the best ideals that have been formulated across the centuries of European culture, that which is often called Western culture.

It is rather singular that this culture itself, through its dominant instruments, even here in Italy, see in the Pope, if not an enemy, then at the very least an inconvenient presence to be defied. An undesirable presence to be criticized with venom or with banality.

For some time, indeed, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger had seen this curious cowardice that the West demonstrates as one of the problems for the future of the West. That future has arrived.

But along with the problem, thankfully, we also have the grace - or the good fortune, if you will - of having a Pope who, in being the universal pastor, remains a point of reference for the simple people and for all those who love life.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/10/2006 16.58]

Austrian president invites Pope for 2007 visit

Vatican, Oct. 05 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI met with Austria's President Heinz Fischer on October 5, and formally accepted an invitation to visit Austria.

Vatican officials have already begun preparations for a papal trip to Mariazell, Austria, in September 2007, to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the famous Marian shrine there. Fischer alluded to those plans when he told the Pontiff that Austria eagerly awaits the visit, and formally extended an invitation in the name of the Austrian government. The Vatican press office announced: "The Holy Father gladly accepted the renewed invitation."

In a conversation that lasted longer than the usual papal audience, Pope Benedict spoke with Fischer about a number of different issues. The Vatican report on the conversation listed topics including bilateral relations between Austria and the Holy See, European cultural identity, relations with Islam, and terrorism.

After his morning session with the Pope, Fischer also met with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State. The Austrian president was in Rome for a series of meetings, planning sessions with Italian government figures and leaders of the Order of Malta.

Apropos to the Avvenire editorial that I posted above, I came across one of the files 'lost' during my shuttling between three PCs - a translation I did of an article in Avvenire about the Pope's meeting with the bishops of Chad on 9/23/06 which I failed to post in a timely manner because ...[well, it's difficult to be systematic when most of the time, I find myself translating and/or posting items for the forum during any odd lulls I find while at work, when I am always bound to interrupt myself to attend to my actual job!]

The Pope's message to the bishops of Chad was given two days before he met with Muslim ambassadors at Castel Gandolfo, but frames the Christian-Muslim dialog opportunely for a country like Chad (which has a mixed population of Christians, Muslims and natives who stick to tribal traditions). The Pope also reaffirmed to them the Church's advocacy of the non-negotiable values of life, matrimony and family.
----------------------------------------------------------------


The universal Pastor on
peace, justice and
common human values
By Lorenzo Rosoli

“I am glad to know that in your country, the relations between Christians and Muslims are generally good, thanks above all to the efforts for better reciprocal knowledge of each other. Therefore I encourage you to continue this collaboration in a spirit of sincere dialog and reciprocal respect, so you can help each other live lives worthy of the dignity we received from God, concerned with developing an authentic solidarity and a harmonious development of society.”

That is a passage from the address given by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday (Sunday) to the bishops who make up the episcopal conference of Chad who are making their ad-limina visit to Rome.

The Pope’s words refer to the unusual situation of this African country, where followers of the Christian Gospel and the Koran live and work together.

Addressing the bishops of Chad, the Pope profiled the challenge once more:
“Recognizing the dignity of everyone, the identity of each human and religious group, and of the freedom to practice our own religion, are part of our common values of peace and justice which must be promoted by everyone, and in which civilian authorities play an important role.”

Therefore: dialog among believrs should not be limited to reciprocal tolerance, but demands a unusual recognition of the dignity, the identity and the freedom of every person I the community, to nourish a living together in which each one can live according to the dignity he has received from God.

A dialog – that is possible, as Chad shows – which becomes a way of life, which feeds the day-to-day routine of living toegher, but does not exclude each person’s religious profession. On the contrary.

“You must always strive to acculturate the Gospel, evangelize the culture, and carry on a sincere and open dialog with everyone so that together you may help build brotherhood and solidarity in the family of man.”

These words were addressed by the Pope to newwly-appointed bishops from Asia, Africa and Latin America who were in Rome to take part in a refresher course (earlier in September) under the auspices of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Fiath.

The way of dialog, of brotherhood, peace and justice, passes through the intersectionbetween the Gospel and the cultures of the world, the Pope noted. This is an encounter that is even more urgently needed in places torn apart by ethnic and socio-cultural conflicts. An encounter that calls on the Christian to bear withness to the Gospel with ‘intrepid ardor’ even to the extent of giving up one’s life.

At this point, the Holy Father reminded them of the ‘sacrifice’ made by Suor Leonella Sgorbati, who was killed several days ago In Somalia.

In his address to the bishops from Chad, the Pope said that proclaiming the Gospel and the testimony of Christian hope would contribute to building a more just society, founded on reconciliation and unity among all.

He cited one of the pastoral challenges today, “the urgency of proclaiming the whole truth about matrimoyn and family. The institution of marriage contributes to the authentic developmnent of persons and society itself, and assures the dignity, equality and true liberty for a man and a woman, as well as the human and spiritual upbringing of their children.“

“In keeping the essential values of the African family, the youth of your land will be able to enjoy life within the beauty and fullness of a Catholic marriage which presupposes indissoluble and faithful love between the spouses.

In today's Corriere della Sera (10/5), its senior Vatican correspondent Luigi Accatoli has an interview with Cardinal Poupard about relations with Islam three weeks since the Regensburg lecture. Our thanks to Emma in the main forum for sharing it. Here is a translation -.


'True Islam believes in dialog
as much as the Pope'
By Luigi Accatoli


Notwithstanding all the threats and rumors, the Pope will go to Turkey. "A Vatican delegation is there right now to see to final arrangements."

Benedict XVI is happy with the way his clarifications have been received in the Muslim world, because this has shown that "true Islam acknowledges the need for dialog."

It is a 'total lie' that the Pope intends to 'suppress' the Council for Inter-Religious Dialog' or to 'reduce its importance'.

These were the statements of Cardinal Paul Poupard, the day after Al-Qaeda's latest verbal attack on the Pope, and the episode of the hijacking which - at least for a few hours - fed speculation that the Pope's planned trip to Turkey on November 28- December 1 would be cancelled.

Your Eminence, what can you say about the trip today?
It is not for me to say. That is the purview of the Scretariat of State. But the last statement, made last night by Father Lombardi after the hijacking incident, denied there was any reason to cancel it, and even on my part, our preparations for the trip are moving ahead normally. I think the Vatican delegation in charge of preparing the various stages are already at work on site.

Dialog is within your jurisdiction, but what dialog can be carried on if one hears threats like those made by Al-Qaeda's ideologue, Al-Zawahiri?
Every human society has its extremists.There are more than a billion Muslims in the world, as you know. Among them, persons of goodwill are in the hundreds of millions, and it is they that we seek to reach. Obviously there are all the fanatic groups and it is just not possible to exorcise their presence right now. It requires all men of good will, working from all sides, to restrict their reach and prevent them from spreading their contagion.

How do you evaluate the clarificatory intiatives that were taken to calm down the contrversy that followed teh Pope's lecture in Regensburg?
A clarification was made, and we have seen the results. The ambasaddor from Turkey, for instance, expressed his satisfaction, but voices of consensus have come from almost all intellectual and diplomatic circles with which the Holy Father, we in the Council, and every organ in the Holy See have contact.

Is the Holy Father satisfied so far?
Yes, because his contacts and encounters have signalled quite clearly that true Islam recognizes the need for dialog and considers us sincere in our desire to carry it forward.

There have been commentators who say the Pope intends to eliminate the Council for Inter-Religious Dialog of which you are now also the president...
It is a complete lie. And it is quite serious that this should continue to be affirmed despite all our attempts to correct it. Because we have representatives from far countries coming to us convinced that the Council for Inter-Religious Dialog no longer exists or has been dismantled.

When you were named its president in March, the impression was that the Council for Inter-Religious Dialog was being subordinated to the Council for Culture, of which you were already president.
Even that is false - there is no subordination. One cardinal heads both councils but each council remains intact and autonomous.

Is there any new initiative being planned for the Muslim world?
We are preparing a message to mark the end of Ramadan, and this year, it will be presented at a news conference in the Vatican.

Archbishop Luigi Celata, secretary of the Council for Dialog, will be In Istanbul On October 12 for an important event that is also related to the end of Ramadan. Along with Turkey's director of religious affairs, he will be speaking to some 400 representatives of the Muslim world. It will be another opportunity to clear the atmosphere.

At the beginning of November, we will have a youth conference in Assisi, in which half the participants will be Christian, and the other half from non-Christian religions, including Islam. The theme will be 'educating for peace.' So, as you can see, the Council for Dialog is not being suppressed!

Luigi Accattoli

Thanks to Amy Welborn and her tipper for pointing us to this article in the Irish Examiner which exposes the virulent bias and animus against Pope Benedict in the BBC Panorama documentary about the Vatican and child abuse.

Sadly, there appear to be few journalists out there interested enough in the truth to look into the BBC's wild charges and refute them with the facts as Patrick Kenny does here.

One would have expected the major London papers to come out with some such commentary or analysis, but they have contented themselves with reporting the Catholic archbishops's protests, without taking a stand themselves - at least on the veracity of the BBC allegations, if not on the evident negative bias!

Is the BBC - whose anti-Iraq war media manipulations last year led to the suicide of a British defense ministry official - so sacrosanct that other British media will not reprove or denounce it, better, for the blatant abdication of objectivity that has characterized it for the past several years now?

Meanwhile, thank you, Mr. Kenny, and may your tribe increase..
----------------------------------------------------------------

Despite campaigner’s charges,
the Pope has acted against child abuse
By Patrick Kenny
5th October 2006

Whether everyone in the Catholic Church accepts it or not, a debt of gratitude is owed to campaigners for justice like Colm O’Gorman. By revealing their horrific stories, abuse victims have helped the Church to confront, sometimes unwillingly, a festering source of pain and shame.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin spoke for many ordinary Catholics when he declared that stories of child sexual abuse filled him with a “violent anger”.

This abuse caused incalculable damage to children and their families, and it has cost the church much credibility and moral authority. But just as bad as the abuse itself were the cover-ups involved. By bringing embarrassing cases to light a real service has been done for the Church, even if Catholics didn’t always see it that way.

But despite the good that Colm O’Gorman has done in fighting for justice, his recent initiatives may have damaged his own credibility. In last Sunday’s BBC Panorama programme, he latched onto supposedly secret documents, threw in some stories about priests apparently being sheltered by the Vatican and emerged with a conspiracy theory leading all the way to the desk of Pope Benedict.

One of the programme’s main ‘proofs’ of a Vatican abuse cover-up was a document entitled Crimen Sollicitationis which, while published in 1962, traces its origins back to the 1700s. The document itself is complex and deals mainly with offences relating to confession. While it requires silence involved in a Church trial, this is necessary for at least three reasons; it allows witnesses to speak freely, it protects the reputation of the accused until guilt is established and it allows victims to come forward free from invasive publicity.

Many canon law experts agree that this document did not prevent bishops from reporting abuse cases to the secular authorities. In so far as they did fail to inform the police of such crimes, the bishops were wrong, but their error stems from misplaced clericalism, not Church policy.

In fact, rather than fostering cover-ups, the document itself mandates that anyone aware of such allegations of solicitation must report them to the relevant bishop or face excommunication themselves.

In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger reserved exclusive Church jurisdiction over such cases to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, primarily with the aim of speeding up the defrocking of priests. Five priests have already been dismissed in the Ferns diocese alone as a result of this new procedure.

The scandals that have come to light in the last decade have been as a result of mismanagement at a local level. Far from being a cover-up, centralisation is aimed at making the dismissal of priests more effective. Some local bishops managed the issues well.

On his radio programme on Monday, Pat Kenny praised the work of Archbishop Martin in ensuring that all abuse cases are automatically reported to the gardai. But O’Gorman immediately replied that the archbishop’s approach was opposed by some in the Church. If by this he means the priests, he is stretching the facts.

What priests have opposed is the policy of standing down after one allegation, no matter how unfounded it might appear. Perhaps these concerns are misplaced, but they stem from a desire to protect the good names of innocent priests who are falsely accused. They have at least a debatable point. But their concerns are a far cry from the general opposition to Archbishop Martin’s work that O’Gorman implies.

Despite claims to the contrary, the Pope’s record show where he stands on these issues.

Easter is the most important time in the life of the Church and is marked by unique religious celebrations. Among the most popular liturgies in Rome are the Stations of the Cross on God Friday when the Pope traditionally carries a cross around the Colosseum in commemoration of the crucifixion of Christ.

Last year, as Pope John Paul lay dying, Cardinal Ratzinger carried the cross in his place. More significantly, however, he was chosen to write the reflections for this event. Just like his recent comments on Islam, he was stingingly direct.

At one point in his meditations in front of tens of thousands of pilgrims, and aware that his comments would receive instant media attention, he lamented the sins of Catholic priests with these words; “Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? …. How often do we celebrate only ourselves? How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him. How much pride, how much self-complacency?”

It hardly sounds like a man who wants to hush up all abuse problems and sweep them under the carpet. If Colm O’Gorman were correct that this Pope is responsible for a massive cover-up of child abuse cases, he has a strange way of showing it in practice.

On two separate occasions within the first 13 months of his papacy he imposed strict penalties on famous founders of religious orders accused of abuse.

The first was Fr Gino Burresi, founder of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Largely unknown in Ireland, he was immensely popular in Italy and recruited 150 men to his order in little more than a decade.

But neither his apparent success nor his advanced age of 73 made him immune to sanction by Pope Benedict. Following an investigation into allegations of abuse, the Pope banned him practising as a priest in any context whatsoever. For a priest, especially the founder of an order, this is a stunning Church penalty.

The same happened a year later in the case of 86-year-old Mexican Fr Marcial Maciel , the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Hugely influential in the Church, his order was one of the fastest growing worldwide and has an associated lay group with tens of thousands of members.

As a cardinal, Ratzinger initiated an investigation into accusations against Maciel; as Pope he imposed a ban on public practice as a priest and a requirement to live a life of penance. Many Catholics believe Fr Maciel to be innocent, and indeed he may be – there was no Church trial or judgement of his guilt or otherwise because of his advanced age and poor health.

But Pope Benedict still took a consistently hard line even when there was only a question mark of suspicion.

Both of these cases were made public by way of official Vatican pronouncements and not by leaks or investigative journalists. Does tackling two cases of high-profile founders of religious orders and imposing one of the most serious penalties possible look like a cover-up?

How objective can O’Gorman and Panorama really be given that they never even mentioned either case? Were they aware of these cases? If not, their investigative journalism is not up to much. If they were aware, why did they leave them out? Surely it couldn’t be because it would spoil a one-sided character assassination of Pope Benedict?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/10/2006 14.18]

The Holy Father delivered an extemporaneous homily this morning to members of the International Theological Commission on silence and contemplation, words and truth - what these mean to theologians in particular; and why priests should never forget that Christ said, "Whoever listens to you, listens to me" - and must therefore be worthy of such trust.

I was struck by this line because of its topical relevance:
"... to speak in search of applause, to speak according to what we think others want to hear, to speak in obedience to the dictatorship of common opinion, may be considered a prostitution of words and of the spirit."

I have posted a full translation in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES & MESSAGES.

P.S. I am probably on Sandro Magister's wavelength because he blogged about that part of the homily today in SETTIMO CIELO. Here is a translation of his blog, which is basically the excerpt that interested him most:

---

06 ottobre 2006
The Pope praises immunity* from
the 'dictatorship of common opinion'

Early today, Benedict XVI said Mass with the theologians of the International Commission who were ending their (yearly) session.

And in the homily, which he delivered off the cuff, he said at one point:

"...In this context, I am reminded of a beautiful sentence in the first Letter of St. Peter, chapter 1, verse 22. In Latin, it says - «Castificantes animas nostras in oboedentia veritatis» . Obedience to truth should keep our spirit chaste - - and thus, guide us to right words and right actions.

"In other words, to speak in search of applause, to speak according to what we think others want to hear, to speak in obedience to the dictatorship of common opinion, may be considered a prostitution of words and of the spirit.

"The 'chastity' that the apostle Peter refers to means not submitting ourselves to common standards, not to seek applause, but rather, obedience to the truth.

"I think that is the fundamental virtue of theology, this difficult discipline of obedience to the truth - which makes us co-workers in the truth, the voice of truth, because we do not speak in the rivers of words that characterizes the world today, but in words that are purified and made chaste by obedience to the truth. And therefore, we can be truly bearers of the truth."

---

*[Magister's heading actually uses the word castita, chastity, which I have translated as 'immunity' to convey the sense in which the word was used by the Pope. It is clear enough as used in the text but sounds'strange' when used out of context in the heading.]

----------------------------------------------------------------

Every time Pope Benedict says something forceful - in the interest of honesty and truth - that goes in the face of conventional reticences, I am awestruck anew at how this seemingly fragile and vulnerable person has developed such resources of courage and strength that belie his incapacity to even engage in sports as a child, and which have enabled him to step forth wisely 'where angels fear to tread' - as theologian, priest, prefect of the CDF and and Pope - in matters that have to do with the faith.

BENEDETTO, SEI IMMENSO!
----------------------------------------------------------------

Other update notes:

The Yahoo news round-up on the Papacy and the Vatican appears to have dropped its coverage of the hijacking story, I am posting an AP follow-up in ODDS AND ENDS.

In NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH, I posted, first, the expected statement about limbo, as well as 3 news items from AsiaNews today illustrating the persecution of Christians in countries where they are a minority. And if you were the Pope, and received this kind of news (which he must, far more often than we do) regularly, it is only right to insist on 'reciprocity now!' Which we expect he will try to do in Turkey next month.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/10/2006 22.43]

In my rush to reproduce Sandro Magister's blog on the Pope's homily today, I failed to notice right away that his first blog for the day actually concerns a reply to the Libyan Muslimn scholar Aref Ali Nayed who attempted a virtually sentence-for-sentence demolition job on the Pope's Regensburg lecture - something so thoroughly and completely negative that even Magister himself reduced his comments about it to a minimum (to the extent even of underplaying how negative it was).

I decided to post that long Magister exclusive in REFLECTIONS ON ISLAM (it included a far shorter positive analysis by another Muslim scholar).

Now, Magister informs us, someone has decided to answer Aref, but only on one of his arguments. Here is a translation of the blog:

---

Posted 06 Oct 2006 at 16:25 -

"Dialog with a Mohameddan"
six centuries later

Six centuries after the now-famous dialectic between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos and a learned Persian interlocutor, Alessandro Martinetti from Ghemme in Novara province crosses pens with the Muslim scholar ARef Ali Nayed, author of a far-reaching closely-argued critique of Benedict XVI's lecture in Regensburg. (The bulk of) Nayed's essay was published online by www.chiesa on October 4.

Martinetti refutes the Muslim scholar's thesis and offers the Catholic Church's rationale on a crucial point: the relatinoship between God and reason.

You may find Martinetti's answer "Arbitrio o Logos? Il Dio dell'islam e quello cristiano" on
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=87901

---

Martinetti's article is posted only in Italian, so far, and we have no information about who he is except where he comes from! I hope Magister's translator is at work, because I won't get around to translating any of it till late tonight!

And Magister was quite busy today. He had a second blog about the Pope's reminiscences about Aschau which, fortunately, we already have in POPE-POURRI from Benefan who posted the CWN stories about it.

Another blog has distressing news for Pope-watchers living in Italy, because it concerns the notice given to the Vatican information service of the television channel Telepace that effective October 9, the whole service is being 'irrevocably cancelled.' No explanation has been given.

In the words of the service editor, "after 16 years of bringing to you the daily activities of the Pope, the Holy See and the Church of Rome, our voice is being stilled."

It's not clear if this also applies to Telepace's live coverage of Vatican events.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/10/2006 1.18]

ZENIT's Italian service has the story, translated here:


VATICAN CITY, 6 Oct. 2006 (ZENIT.org) - Benedict VXI has called the first worldwide Synod of Catholic Bishops in his Pontificate
to take place on OCtober 5-26, 2008 at the Vatican on the theme "The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church."

It will be the second synod presided by him after the one dedicated to the Eucharist, held in October 2005. But that Synod was convoked by John Paul II.

The meeting in October 2008 will be the 12th general assembly of the Bishops Synod. The dates announced confirm a novelty introduced by Benedict in the October 2005 Synod: it will last a week shorter than the previous 10 assemblies. He also introduced a daily 'free hour' during which participants may speak up on any subject they choose.

The Bishops Synod is a permanent institution decreed by Paul VI in September 1965 to implement the desire expressed by the participants of the Second Catican Council to keep the conciliar experience alive.

The General Secretariat of the Bishops Synod said the word synod - which comes from the Greek 'syn', together, and 'hod', road - literally means 'to walk together.'

In that sense, a spokesman adds,""a Synod is an assembly or a reiligious encounter in which the bishops, assembled around and with the Holy Father, have the opportunity to interact and to share information an experiences in a common search for pastoral solutions which have universal validity and application."

Under Canon 344 of the Code of Canon Law, "the Bishops Synod is directly under the authority of the Roman Pontiff, who has the right to decide to:
1º Call the Synod any time he thinks is appropriate and designate where the Assembly will take place;
2º Ratify the election of members who should be elected by right, and to designate and nominate other participants;
3º Establish the guidelines for the questions to be dsicusssed with ample time before the event;
4º Define the program of work;
5º Preside over the Synod personally, or through others; and
6º Conclude, transfer, suspend or dissolve the Synod.

---------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. The ZENIT story said the date for the new Synod was October 2007, but the Vatican announcement about the theme clearly says 2008, so I went in and changed the dates.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/10/2006 1.10]

I posted news items on this today in NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH, Post 4308, before the series of AsiaNews reports on /Christian persecutions in non-Christian lands.

The news agency reports make much of the fact that the Pope did not make an announcement today, an announcement the media had speculated on for days.

Did they really expect the Pope to make 'limbo' - something he already spoke about as unimportant to the doctrine of the faith as early as 20 years ago - the subject of his homily? If they did, then they do not understand the nature of a homily - which is always based on the Mass readings and/or Gospel of the day.

Worst of all, they completely ignored the homily itself - yet another brilliant improvised homily, in which the Pope speaks against 'the dictatorship of common opinion', among so many profound things he said in a densely rich but simply and directly worded discourse on silence, words and truth!

Maybe because what he said to his fellow theologians really applies directly to everyone whose profession deals with words? And our journalists do not want to be reminded there is such a thing as an obligation to truth, that in failing to serve the truth, they are prostituting words and their own souls, and that they are really the leading 'dictators of common opinion', to use a new phrase from this Pope who once before denounced the 'dictatorship of relativism'?

Only ZENIT's Italian service so far - and it is a Catholic news agency - has reported the homily as news. (I am surprised that even AsiaNews, which is usually first off the bat with an account of the Pope's Angelus messages or Wednesday catecheses, has not yet reported it).

And from what I see of the ZENIT story, they would have been better off just posting the homily in full (it is fairly brief, after all - and one appreciates the structure and flow of the Pope's thinking better), instead of using disjointed quotations from it in every sentence of the report!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/10/2006 22.41]

About the BBC Special, "Sex Crimes in the Vatican"

From John Allen in "All Things Catholic"
The National Catholic Reporter
Oct. 6, 2006


The BBC aired a documentary on Sunday, Oct. 1, titled "Sex Crimes in the Vatican." Made by Irish journalist Colm O'Gorman, himself the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of an Irish priest, the program traced the sorry history of denial and cover-up of clerical abuse, suggesting this pattern is not entirely in the past by exposing a contemporary case in Brazil.

I was on a BBC Radio program with O'Gorman immediately after the documentary, and he came across as a sincere journalist trying to come to terms with a terrible tragedy.

The documentary, part of the prestigious BBC "Panorama" series, nevertheless exhibits a striking callousness with regard to the facts, especially concerning a 1962 Vatican document titled Crimen Sollicitationis, an instruction from the then-Holy Office (today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) laying out procedures to be followed in cases when priests used the confessional to solicit illicit acts. Predictably, it put much emphasis on secrecy.

O'Gorman's film presented the document as a "smoking gun" proving a Vatican-ordered conspiracy to protect pedophile priests.

If that charge has an eerily familiar ring, it's because we've been down this path before. In July 2003, the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, followed by the CBS Evening News, aired the same charges. In the discussion that ensued three years ago, at least three points were established about Crimen Sollicitationis:

--The document, which was supposed to be stored in each diocese's secret archives, was exceedingly obscure. Most canon lawyers and bishops had never heard of it prior to the controversy in 2003, so to suggest it played a crucial role in shaping the church's response to the crisis is an exaggeration;

--As an "instruction," the document's legal force expired in 1983 with the revision of the Code of Canon Law;

--The document was concerned only with secrecy in internal ecclesiastical procedures. There was nothing in it, nor anywhere else in church law, that would have prevented a bishop (or anyone else) from reporting a crime of sexual abuse to the local police or a prosecuting attorney. That bishops failed to do so is indicative of a widespread pattern of damage control, and the Vatican was as guilty of it as anyone else, but this was a matter of culture and institutional psychology rather than formal law.

Granted, some of this may be arcane to non-experts. But the BBC documentary was not charting unexplored territory; all of this had already been placed on the record, and one might have expected to find it reflected.

The film also suggests that since the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has juridical responsibility for charges of sex abuse against priests, Pope Benedict XVI, the former prefect of the congregation, has been an architect of the Vatican's policy of cover-up and denial.

Here again, the facts sometimes became twisted in the presentation.

First, the documentary suggests that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was responsible for "enforcing" Crimen Sollicitationis. Yet he arrived in Rome in November 1981 and the document went out of force in January 1983, so at best he could have "enforced" it for 14 months, and there's no record that he ever referred to it during that time.

Second, as far as Ratzinger personally, he was as slow to grasp the dimensions of the crisis as most Vatican officials. In November 2002, for example, he addressed the American crisis during an appearance in Murcia, Spain, appearing to blame it on anti-Catholicism in the press.

"There is constant news on this topic, but less than one percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church," Ratzinger said.

A John Jay study commissioned by the U.S. bishops eventually found that 4.3 percent of diocesan priests from 1950 to 2002 faced at least one accusation of sexual abuse.

Yet there is considerable evidence that his attitude has evolved, the most convincing example coming with his decision in May to remove Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, from public ministry because of charges of sexual abuse against the 86-year-old Mexican priest, a personal favorite of John Paul II.

This, too, was absent from the BBC report.

[Modificato da benefan 07/10/2006 3.30]

A few days late, but at least I have discovered Yahoo's Italian service, which had this very newsworthy item from the Italian news agency ASCA on October 4. Here is a translation -
-------------------------------------------------------------

(ASCA) - Belluno, 4 Oct - "We are very concerned about the Pope's trip to Turkey (and) the Church in Latin America is praying very intensely for him. I think, however, that Pope Benedict should go, because we cannot be victims of terror and of fear."

This was the statement of Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, at a news conference in the Papa Luciani Center here.

"The Pope himself has often repeated John Paul's admonition- 'Have no fear.' And when we have faith, we do not fear anything, not even martyrdom," he added.

According to Maradiaga, Pope Benedict "should proceed" to Turkey in order "to build bridges."

"It is the task of a Pontiff," he said. But he added that the Christians of Latin America "who are very devoted to Papa Ratzinger," have suffered much these days because of "the exploitation of the Regensburg lecture, about which, among other things, manipulaton was quite evident."

Returning to the subject of the trip to Turkey, Maradiaga repeated he was convinced the Pope "should aboslutely proceed" and that "we should all pray for him."

He pointed out that it was a trip "much awaited by our Orthodox brothers, who are also in difficulties because of Muslim fundamentalism."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/10/2006 21.27]

Beatrice has opened a whole new site dedicated to the Pope on www.beatriceweb.eu
which provides a wealth of text, photo and video resources for anyone who has a working knowledge of French.

I will try to translate what I can of the many articles that she assembles daily from the French-speaking media in order to give us the sense and flavor of the French mindset as it emerges from these articles. Understandably, she limits her choices to reliable reports and sensible commentary (positive as well as negative) from both mainstream media and online resources.

I chose to begin with this original, reasonably-founded and almost logically obvious analysis - one remarkably beyond polemics - of the Regensburg lecture that appeared in the October 3 issue of Liberation (which, I believe, is/was the organ of the French Communist Party).

The Ecole Normale Superieur where the author teaches is France's elite academic institution for the training of professionals in the political and social sciences.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Benedict XVI, the geopolitical Pope
The head of the Catholic Church
proposes a third way to the
Islam-vs-West alternative
By Eric Fassin
Sociologist and Professor
Ecole Normale Superieur


A reading of Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture invites us to consider seriously the political theology of the Sovereign Pontiff.

The text gives us the other side of reflections Ratzinger developed during his 2004 dialectic with Juergen Habermas [German's leading postwar philosopher] when they discussed the limits of the use of reason in politics, in a debate that was formally called "The pre-political foundations of democracy."

[The full transcript of the exchange, which was held at the Catholic Academy of Munich, has been published in German, Italian, Spanish and French, as far as I know, but I don't believe there is an English translation yet - and that has been one of my more ambitious pending translation projects for some time now!]

[..]

In developing a complementary side to his Munich statements in the Regensburg lecture, the Pope-theologian places Catholicism at the point of equilibrium between faith and reason, as also between the secularized rationalism of individualist societies and the fanatic irrationality of fundamentalists.

It is no longer a question - as in the time of a more 'charismatic' Pope - of going all over the world seeking to inspire evangelical renewal nor of simply favoring ecumenical dialog with the liberal Protestant Churches. This Pope is concerned with regrouping the forces of the Catholic Church on its most traditional bases, on its home turf.

This proper geopolitical milieu indicates a geopolitics that is inscribed within Greek rationality. On the one hand, in effect, Christianity is funnamentally European. For this Pope, 'One can hardly wonder that Christianity - despite its origin and important early development in the East - left its decisive historic imprint in Europe."

On the other hand, and in turn, Europe is fundamentally Christian.

The historic 'encounter' between faith and reason 'created Europe' and remains 'its foundation.'

Of course, as Joseph Ratzinger earlier told Habermas, "one can and one should say this without false Eurocentrism."

In effect, the civilizing effort must not be retricted to one culture, but should be universal. In this, the Pope is truly 'catholic.'

Nevertheless, he does not yield any ground to multicultural relativism, which, on the contrary, he targets for criticism. Because he thinks that only a renewed dialog between the two Western traditions- Greek and Biblical - would permit an opening towards 'other cultures.'

"It is important to integrate them (other cultures) in an attempt at polyphonic correlation within which they themselves would open up to the complementarity of faith and reason."

For him, authentic Eurocentrism is this: Europe [a renewed Christian Europe, that is] can serve as a model to inspire the rest of the world.

One sees here the geopolitical significance of Vatican thinking - already manifested during the debates on the inclusion of a Christian reference in the European Constitution, or regarding the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

[Does the Vatican have an official position on this? We know Joseph Ratzinger's personal position - and one of the cliffhangers of the Papal trip to Turkey is what he will say on this issue when he meets with Turkey's political leaders, who are his official hosts.]

In setting Christian Europe as a rampart against religious terrorism, Benedict's message inevitably recalls the rhetoric on the conflict of civilizations, for which the United States under George W. Bush is the Western figurehead.

But the scenario that the Pope proposes competes with the American vision. He sees a third way, the European way, to bridge the Islam-West divide.

Because this would avoid the violence of a religious crusade. One is familair with Stalin's question, "How many divisions has the Pope?"

In fact, the world order sketched by the Regensburg lecture would be founded on cultural, not military, hegemony.

If, for the neocons across the Atlantic, "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus," for Benedict XVI's traditional conservatism, it is to Rome that Europe must look.
[How optimistic, but would it were so!]

---------------------------------------------------------------

Very apropos to Fassin's thesis, Beatrice cites news agency items at the end of September - which passed unnoticed - on a message addressed by the Pope to Catholic university professors meeting in Rome on the theme "Whither Europe?"

Adnkronos gives a brief summary which reiterates the Pope's consistent message about Europe, dating back to his days as a professor and culminating in Regensburg.

VATICAN CITY, 29 Sept (adnkronos) - "Reflect on the cultural foundations of the European continent, not episodically ,but in the context of continual and organic evangelic action within the academic world" and "work together to build a renewed European identity that is able to offer the world, in the face of the challenges of our time, the benefits of an invaluable spiritual and cultural heritage, and to forge a humanism that is rational and open to the revelation of Jesus Christ, that is tolerant but firm in its ethical principles."

This was the Pope's exhortation contained in a message sent to the Fifth European symposium of University Professors on the theme, "Whither Europe? Culture, peoples and institutions." The Pope's message was delivered by the new secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The news agency ASCA reports more excerpts from the message, in an item entitled -

The foundations of the European Union
are reason and its Christian roots

...The key for re-opening the debate on 'the cultural foundations of the European continent" lies in an 'authentic humanism' in which "reason is employed according to the full measure of its potentialities, in a rigorous analysis of facts, while constantly asking the great questions about the meaning of man, of history and of the cosmos."

The Pope urged professors and students alike to "aim for full rationality that is faithful to the entire human experience...in order to pursue a constructive dialog among all who share the same passion for truth and for humanity, and who are willing to work together without ideological prejudice while respecting their differences."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/10/2006 4.00]

The worldwide uproar that followed the Holy Father's Regensburg lecture eclipsed the usual evaluation that would have followed a Papal trip as important as that he made to Bavaria.

The following is a commentary in the Frankfuerter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany's leading newspaper [and for years chosen 'best newspaper in the world' in a yearly survey of opinion-makers and journalists] which was published in the September 15 issue.

There is no mention of Islam at all, nor of the controversy that by Sept. 15 had become Page 1 news everywhere. The writer apparently wrote and filed it, without realizing the storm that was already gathering.

FAZ itself reported the first protest - by the Turkish minister for religious affairs - on Sept. 14 as its lead pragraph, in a story that was otherwise devoted to recounting Benedict's last day in Bavaria.

The following commentary therefore is perhaps more valuable because it is not colored by premonition or hindsight of the disproportionate Muslim reaction.
----------------------------------------------------------------


The dialectic of enlightenment
By Daniel Deckers



15 September 2006 - Benedict XVI visited his Bavarian homeland for six days. In churches and in the open air he prayed, he preached before hundreds of thousands, and even gave a university lecture.

The joyously colorful images from Munich, Altoetting and Regensburg will live long in memory.

But Benedict XVI has written history with his words. Because the theme of this visit was not homecoming celebration but nothing less than the defense of the Christian West - even against itself.

In April 2005 the German Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope by cardinals from all over the world. A man from the land where the Reformation and the Enlightenment, as well as the Second World War, had originated. German history had sharpened his appreciation of the depths man can plunge to and of the errors of nations.

And so, the man who was for more than two decades prefect of the Congregation for the Docrtrine of the Faith - in his insistence on nourishing the Christian roots of Europe, in conflict with the German Church over its relations with the state, and in exchanges with philosophers about power and right - developed a theological-political profile of his own during the long pontificate of John Paul II, a profile that made him appear to be John Paul's natural successor.

Like his predecessor, Benedict has addressed himself not only to Cstholics. His discourses encompass the basic questions of life, faith and reason. He considers the texts from the Old and New Testaments, from which he preaches as they are given in the liturgy of the day, as the reflection of man's hopes that human life as well as the world have a sense and a purpose.

Citing philosophers from Plato to Kant, he considers all men - across all religions and cultures - capable of reason. That there is a standard for good and evil. That man's worth consists of living according to his reasoning nature. That this is not just a special Catholic teaching nor the private morality of a Bavarian Pope.

Benedict XVI upholds and defends not only the universal validity of Christian thought but the legacy of the European Enlightenment which is threatened by a Manichaean division of the world into believers and non-believers, in "for us" and "against us".

The background for Benedict's discourses in Bavaria is not the picture-pretty Alps of his homeland, but the spoken and written thoughts of the powerful of the world from Ahamadinejad to Bush.

Benedict obviously sees the universal outreach of Christian thought endangered not only from without but from within. Kant's statement that he needed to set reason aside in order to make room for faith was, in Benedict's view, the sign of modern dilemma.

"Pure" reason, which would exclude God in the name of self-determination and freedom, reduces its reach deliberately to that which can be objectively known. It runs the risk of being nothing more than utilitarian reason, and does not suffice for man to live his life well.

In these past days, the Pope had several catchphrases to describe this deliberate restriction of reason. He spoke of 'a defaness to God" and "shortening the radius of reason", and quite clearly - sometimes in simple terms, other times in more sophisticated words - of what he has called "the dictatorship of relativism."

The very bases of civilization are at stake, he says, when the striving for scientific and tehnical progress as well as individual freedom eclipses the sphere of values to which man must relate himself from the beginning of life to its natural end.

But this danger is only one side of the dialectic of enlightenment. As though the Papal visit and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 had not coincided by chance, the Pope spoke of a 'pathology' that has long marked the relations between the modernized West and the rest of the world.

He does not see the increasing rejection of so-called Western values in Asia and Africa as a retreat from modernity. In the anti-Western sentiment that has become widespread acoss the globe, Benedict sees a reaction to the Western concept of reason and freedom which considers religion and faith to be irrational and pre-scientific, leaving the way wide open for cynicism to prevail.

With this thought, the Pope both re-oriented and sharpened his diagnosis of the crisis of the West. What appears to be a chasm between Western values and political reality is not the result of Western double standards that have boomeranged. That would be too simple.

The Pope sees in the supposedly Christian West as in the world of Islam, for instance, movements at work that will not have anything to do with reasonable standards of goodness and truth, among which one must include a respect for the sacred.

The Pope has spent six thought-provoking days in his Bavarian homeland, in whose piety he is deeply rooted. Against these personal background (somewhat tinged with melancholy because of his age), Benedict has given us a theological and polltical profile of his papacy that points to the future.
----------------------------------------------------------------

For those who might be curious, the first FAZ story on the Regensburg lecture was entitled "Pope warns the West against falling short in a dialog of cultures".

Its lead paragraph read:

"Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a dialog between cultures, but warned the West at the same time not to fall short in such a dialog. In a lecture at the University of Regensburg, he said cultures are not capable of dialog if they depend on reason that is deaf to the divine and that would put religion into the category of a subculture."

There was another paragraph about why Benedict spoke at the University and to whom, but the rest of the story was about Benedict's day in Regensburg which had begun with the Mass at Islinger Feld, at which he had delivered a homily that was perhaps the most important of the three Mass homilies he said in Bavaria. Unfortunately, that, too, got short shrift after the Regensburg storm broke out.

Again, most noteworthy about this first FAZ report on the Regensburg lecture was that it does not mention Islam at all, even if in the same issue, FAZ published the full text of the lecture.

The very fact that neither the reporter (nor his editors) saw anything 'newsworthy' about the Manuel II citation in a lecture that was so clearly not all about that, shows FAZ worthy of its reputation. It didn't stoop to sensationalize as did Italy's 'La Repubblica' (organ of the Italian liberals) which took the lead yet again in a determined attempt to put down this Pope at any opportunity.

I hope, eventually, to post translations of the more important German accounts of the Bavarian visit in the VOYAGE TO BAVARIA thread.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/10/2006 4.03]