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Philosopher Peter Serracino Inglott says Benedict may have ‘forgotten’ he was still the head of the Catholic Church when he took the Regensburg podium.
There has been no doubt that since 9/11, and the disintegration of Iraq at the hands of the US invasion, the importance of understanding Islam better has become ever more important.
 Which is why the recent ‘statement’ by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg, where he quoted criticism of the Prophet Muhammad by a Byzantine emperor linking Islam with violence, have stoked once again Muslim anger, just months after February’s violent protests that marked the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in the Danish Jyllands Posten.
Some say it was an act of papal stupidity, which later could have resulted in the death of an elderly Catholic nun killed in Somalia. Churches were attacked in the West Bank. Some say Benedict’s personal authority has now been damaged. Others claim he has little sympathy for other faiths.
Since then he has issued a statement expressing his regret at what he said, almost close to a rare apology, saying the medieval text he quoted did not express his personal opinion. But when he did apologise, it wasn’t for what he said, but for Muslims’ failure to grasp the meaning. Malaysia, first describing it as inadequate, later accepted the Pope’s statement after George W Bush convinced Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also chairman of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, that the pontiff’s regret was “sincere”. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s party secretary condemned the comments as a “misguided vision of Islam”. And in traditional zany fashion, Muhammad Muammar Khaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Khaddafi called on the pontiff to convert to Islam.
Philosopher Peter Serracino Inglott, the former rector of the University of Malta, certainly finds the erudite opinion of Manuel Paleologos, the Byzantine emperor quoted by Benedict, to be clearly mistaken: “I haven’t actually read this dialogue between the emperor and the Persian wise man, so I don’t know what takes place in this dialogue. But one can easily imagine what the wise man could have replied to this challenge: he could have told him that a masterpiece of Arabic prose came out of Muhammed,” he says, referring to the Koran.
“The point is that the Pope was quoting it for the purposes of his lecture. I think this is perhaps the Pope’s mistake, that he thought he could give an academic lecture such as a professor would give, apparently imagining this was possible on his part.”
Was it naïve of the pontiff to assume he could take on both roles?
“I think it’s quite naïve because he wrote in his same style as he would have as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is not the style expected out of the Magisterium of the Church but written as if this was an intelligent theologian expressing his views on the issues that came before him. So I think it might well be the case that the Pope thinks he should always be himself, and that when he changes his hat, he should change his style.”
Like the issue of the Danish cartoons, many have invoked the grand issue of freedom of speech. But is this defence just a diversion? Certainly, much confusion arises from the issue of free speech and whether this right is now being taken to task by Muslim leaders who take offence at criticism of Islam. Profs. Serracino Inglott says much of the anger stoked among Muslims is partly due to the ulema – Muslims scholars – spreading anger at the grassroots, and then followed up by state leaders. Notably, Turkey and Iran did not follow this pattern. “It’s very obvious that somebody like Badawi, also given his character, is trying to forestall the Islamists in Malaysia, who are quite strong, and made those statements for internal consumption so that he is not open to attack from Islamists.”
While essentially we are free to say what we like, we are also limited in that freedom by laws of libel in certain countries. However, certain symbolic jobs carry a particular limit to free speech. So does the same apply for Pope Benedict? Could the same words he expressed back in his time as cardinal, for example calling Buddhism “auto-erotic spirituality” have a different meaning as pontiff, the leader of a global religion of more than a billion followers?
“Yes I think that somebody speaking as the ‘President of Malta’ cannot speak as if he were ‘Eddie Fenech Adami’. Of course he must be consistent, but a certain role restricts what you can actually say.”
Surprisingly of course, was the reason why Benedict unearthed a 700-year-old sentence saying: “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” – surely he must have known there would be consequences. Of course, if he did not agree with the statement by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos, he could have put some distance between himself and it.
Instead the only coyness is a reference to Manuel’s “startling brusqueness”. It seemed surprising that the Pope could have ever been so nonchalant to take a dip in such choppy waters. Was it a gratuitous reawakening of historical western prejudices, claiming that Muslims are rather partial to violence?
“No I think he thought the quote was illustrating the point he wanted to make. He wanted to argue that faith is rational, and he was mainly arguing against those people in the West who think that rationality is just argument based on empirical evidence, scientific truth. Incidentally, he wanted to argue that it is by reason that religion should be advanced, and not by force – by that he meant rhetorical force, and that this style should not be adopted, this kind of persuasive rhetoric. And incidentally he quoted this emperor to show that the effect of the adoption of a persuasive rhetoric such as is often adopted by Muslims, but also by Christians, is likely to create a false impression.”
Indeed Benedict’s defenders say he was only engaged in a “scholarly consideration of the relationship between reason and faith”. But others also believe the Pope had broken a sort of unspoken agreement on religions, where interfaith dialogue is usually conducted as a polite affair, and where cantankerous arguments are usually not resorted to.
“I think the example he chose appeals to an erudite academic professor, especially in the German University style. I don’t think it’s so much that as he was addressing an academic audience and that they would have understood it rightly. It’s only when that statement is repeated out of context that it becomes controversial.”
But surely, this is a man who understands the power of his words, especially when the global media latches on to them.
“He cannot not have been aware of it, but he was still expected to be taken that this was Joseph Ratzinger, a German intellectual giving an academic lecture, and that people would make this distinction.”
But there are other points on which critics have accused Benedict. Islam is one of the key differences between him and his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who had once rallied world religious leaders at Assisi, even African animists, to pray for world peace. John Paul made efforts to heal centuries of hostility and indifference on the part of the Catholic church to Europe’s Jews, and he also apologised for the Crusades and was the first Pope to visit a mosque during a visit to Syria in 2001.
As Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict had opposed Turkey’s EU bid, saying it belonged to a different cultural sphere. In 1996 he wrote that Islam had difficulty in adapting to modern life. Observers fear Benedict’s approach to Islam tends to be shoddy. His widely criticised decision to remove Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, an expert on Islam, from the Vatican’s department that promoted dialogue with other religions, now seems prophetic.
In a nutshell, Benedict wants to dialogue with Islam but also wants reciprocity: he wants Christians to enjoy the equal right of following their faith in Islamic states, the same way Muslims enjoy this religious freedom in the West, without fear of persecution.
“It’s very reasonable to understand the position over religious freedom. If one thinks of the way the Copts are treated in Egypt… I am myself surprised that Christians haven’t tried to defend their fellow Christians who are in these situations. Today they announced the execution of three Catholics in Indonesia, and there has been very little protest about it. Italy’s Massimo D’Alema and Spain’s Jose Zapatero, two people on the left, have protested, other than the Holy See. I am surprised that liberal politicians don’t defend people who are suffering persecution in Muslim countries. And it’s just because they want to maintain the good opinion of these dictators, and unfortunately that is very often the case for America, allowing people to get away with, literally, the murder of innocent people, just so they don’t incur political hostility.”
But religion has become more political since 9/11, and politics, certainly with the advent of George W Bush on the steam of America’s religious right, even more religious; it seems we have reached a point where a religious slur is almost akin to racism, religion today becoming an issue of identity. Does that mean we should still handle religion with care, or should freedom of expression be given free rein, with all the likely consequences, as was the case with the Danish cartoons?
“I certainly think you should be respectful to prophets, and not just to Muslims, but to anybody who has an opinion which at least claims to be rationally founded. I think there is a paradox in the fact that what the Pope was arguing was that these matters should be discussed rationally and not using force, not even forceful argument, but the reaction to that is forceful! People get killed, things get burnt, Al Qaeda threatening the Pope physically at the Vatican… while if anything the Pope’s speech could be paralleled by what the teachers in the Muslim tradition say: following faithfully on the Koran, they always argue that the approach should be reasonable.
“The famous early passage on the jihad, on the holy war, begins by saying first there is the jihad of the heart, then of the mind, and finally also the sword in extreme cases against atheists who are a threat to the community and the state. So what the Pope’s speech amounted to was the defence of the jihad of the heart as against the jihad of the sword. The illustration he chose was indeed complex, and you had to follow an intricate reasoning to see what the point that he was making was the Pope has to speak in much more easily comprehensible ways, but the proper answer should have been that his speech can be paralleled by mainstream Muslim thought.”
While critics claim the Regensburg lecture has shown a harder stance towards Islam, Serracino Inglott is heartened by the announcement that Benedict will receive representatives of Muslim communities in Italy and ambassadors to the Holy See from countries with Muslim majorities, to talk on how best to pursue Christian-Muslim dialogue. “It may have opened new opportunities and avenues on this issue. Benedict hadn’t participated very willingly in the Assisi prayer meeting. It’s not that he’s not open to dialogue. He’s very much afraid of giving the impression of a relativistic approach as if he subscribed to the view that all religions were the same, that they all led to God, to the same God… he’s very careful on that terrain. But I think otherwise, he very keenly wants to pursue dialogue especially with Jews and Muslims. So it may have had a positive effect upon him, making him realise that he can’t continue talking like a university professor.”
If the Pope’s choice quote has landed him in an awkward position, it would certainly be the talk of having positioned himself at the opposite spectrum of the so called ‘clash of civilisations’, and that in invoking the slight inference of a war of religions, placed himself at the opposite end of Osama bin Laden – had Benedict, by quoting a Byzantine emperor, taken the bait?
“I think the Pope wants to present himself at the opposite end of bin Laden, but by spreading religion by rational discussion not by the use of force. Osama bin Laden is a very poor exponent of Islam, so the Pope wants dialogue with the real Islam not with people who are a caricature of Islam.”
Benedict may have another opportunity to explain himself to Muslims in November, when he is scheduled to visit Turkey. I ask Serracino Inglott what he could suggest the pontiff to say this time, especially given his previous opposition to Turkish membership in the EU.
“When he did that, even though he wasn’t yet pope, I greatly regretted it. I myself am very wary of Turkish admission to the EU, apart from the fact that Turkey still pretends it has no Kurdish problem and of course, their record on human rights, but also because the Turks maintain very strongly that democracy requires a perfect reflection of numerical strength. Of course that would mean that in a few years’ time they would dominate. They are going against what has been the essence of the EU which is that even a country as small as Luxembourg has, in certain respects, has as much weight as Germany. That’s very important for Malta! Unless that wasn’t the principle, I would have never been so supportive of Malta’s membership bid.
“But I would never say that I don’t want Turkey to become an EU member because it is an Islamic country. On the contrary, De Gaspari defined the EU not as a geographical expression but in terms of cultural principles, that a European was somebody considering themselves an heir of the Greco-Roman tradition, explicitly enunciating that from this point of view, there was no problem for countries like Turkey, or even Morocco, to be admitted if they subscribed to living according to this heritage.
“I would prefer that the Pope does not enter this territory because these are political issues, except that he has already entered it. In a sense, for me it is very difficult to say what his policy should be, because he probably wants to correct an impression he gave earlier.”
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