Shepherds Pie? I Prefer Humble…
(http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/bn091806.htm - Allen’s article from which his op-ed is drawn. The op-ed is restricted access so most quotes are from the article.)
John L. Allen Jr., the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, was recently on the op-ed page of the New York Times defending Pope Benedict’s controversial comments on Islam. “Seen in context,” Allen writes, the Pope’s citation of Byzantine emperor Michael II Paleologus was “not intended as an anti-Islamic broadside.” Instead, Benedict’s real target was “not Islam but the West, especially its tendency to separate reason and faith.” Allen calls this “German professor meets soundbyte culture.”
I do sympathize. Modern media (except, of course, our beloved blog form) can be cruel and unforgiving when it comes to issues of context. But Allen’s context, drawn from his years of experience covering the Vatican, might be better called gloss – he only quotes the speech’s most controversial five words (“things only evil and inhuman”), focusing most of his column space on this Pope’s more “muscular” and “hawkish” stance towards Islam than his predecessor, the late, great, John Paul II. Benedict’s words are but the grain of sand at the center of Allen’s pearl.
The National Catholic Reporter is unaffiliated with the Vatican, but Allen’s article (much of which appeared on the NCR website) is one of many that defend this Papal Bullshit. And there is a pattern to their spin: the tacit acknowledgment of guilt, or at least that such comments might be inappropriate, and then a redirection, reaffirming the Orientalist legacy of our early scholars. Maintaining their Manichaeism.
Allen offers what should be an even more damning quotation, as it comes directly from then Cardinal Ratzinger, unfiltered and unframed: "One has to have a clear understanding that [Islam] is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a democratic society.” Allen then explains, in what almost sounds like an excuse for the Pope’s radical views, that the issue is one of reciprocity. “The most notorious example,” he writes, is that “the Saudis contributed $20 million to build Europe's largest mosque in Rome, [but] Christians cannot build churches in Saudi Arabia.”
This demand for equivalency is presumptive, arrogant, and reveals the worst kind of evangelical sentiment. I believe in the right to worship, but I also believe in the right of self-determination. And isn’t the export of Western liberal ideals what got us into this mess in the first place? The irony is that Benedict’s radicalism regarding Islam means that he and bin Laden, who (apparently) just called on Westerners to convert, have more in common than they thought.
George W. Bush was recently heard speaking of a “Third Awakening,” a new era of religious activity. In the realm of politics, certainly, this much is clear. From Islamic Republics to Benedict’s policy recommendations to Bush’s own personal crusade, religion – often times apocalyptic in focus – is infusing the debate with radicalism and a fundamentally anti-democratic spirit. It is not religion itself, but the inability to compromise associated with its leadership, that is at fault.
Amidst all this, the Bush administration is bringing the executive branch to unprecedented levels of dominance in a government previously of checks and balances. Benedict seems to be aiding this process, if not literally, than at least ideologically. His arguments against the dehellenization of Christianity, that is, “stripping it of its Greco-Roman encrustations and returning it to a state of "pure faith," actually strengthen his own executive position, including secular affairs in his own spiritual authority.
This is not a clash of civilizations – it is a battle of shepherds, and the sheep stand to lose.
John L. Allen Jr., the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, was recently on the op-ed page of the New York Times defending Pope Benedict’s controversial comments on Islam. “Seen in context,” Allen writes, the Pope’s citation of Byzantine emperor Michael II Paleologus was “not intended as an anti-Islamic broadside.” Instead, Benedict’s real target was “not Islam but the West, especially its tendency to separate reason and faith.” Allen calls this “German professor meets soundbyte culture.”
I do sympathize. Modern media (except, of course, our beloved blog form) can be cruel and unforgiving when it comes to issues of context. But Allen’s context, drawn from his years of experience covering the Vatican, might be better called gloss – he only quotes the speech’s most controversial five words (“things only evil and inhuman”), focusing most of his column space on this Pope’s more “muscular” and “hawkish” stance towards Islam than his predecessor, the late, great, John Paul II. Benedict’s words are but the grain of sand at the center of Allen’s pearl.
The National Catholic Reporter is unaffiliated with the Vatican, but Allen’s article (much of which appeared on the NCR website) is one of many that defend this Papal Bullshit. And there is a pattern to their spin: the tacit acknowledgment of guilt, or at least that such comments might be inappropriate, and then a redirection, reaffirming the Orientalist legacy of our early scholars. Maintaining their Manichaeism.
Allen offers what should be an even more damning quotation, as it comes directly from then Cardinal Ratzinger, unfiltered and unframed: "One has to have a clear understanding that [Islam] is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a democratic society.” Allen then explains, in what almost sounds like an excuse for the Pope’s radical views, that the issue is one of reciprocity. “The most notorious example,” he writes, is that “the Saudis contributed $20 million to build Europe's largest mosque in Rome, [but] Christians cannot build churches in Saudi Arabia.”
This demand for equivalency is presumptive, arrogant, and reveals the worst kind of evangelical sentiment. I believe in the right to worship, but I also believe in the right of self-determination. And isn’t the export of Western liberal ideals what got us into this mess in the first place? The irony is that Benedict’s radicalism regarding Islam means that he and bin Laden, who (apparently) just called on Westerners to convert, have more in common than they thought.
George W. Bush was recently heard speaking of a “Third Awakening,” a new era of religious activity. In the realm of politics, certainly, this much is clear. From Islamic Republics to Benedict’s policy recommendations to Bush’s own personal crusade, religion – often times apocalyptic in focus – is infusing the debate with radicalism and a fundamentally anti-democratic spirit. It is not religion itself, but the inability to compromise associated with its leadership, that is at fault.
Amidst all this, the Bush administration is bringing the executive branch to unprecedented levels of dominance in a government previously of checks and balances. Benedict seems to be aiding this process, if not literally, than at least ideologically. His arguments against the dehellenization of Christianity, that is, “stripping it of its Greco-Roman encrustations and returning it to a state of "pure faith," actually strengthen his own executive position, including secular affairs in his own spiritual authority.
This is not a clash of civilizations – it is a battle of shepherds, and the sheep stand to lose.
posted by base at 10:20 AM
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