Lawrence Auster thinks the Pope has pretty much blown it now. Excerpt:
[T]he pope's statement is filled with so many respectful noises toward Islam, including his expression of "my profound respect for the great religions, and in particular for the Moslems, who 'adore the one God,' and with whom we are engaged in 'defending and promoting together, for all men, social justice, moral values, peace and freedom' (Nostra Aetate, 3)," that I'm ready to throw up. Surely Benedict knows that Islam does not believe in "social justice" (what, is the pope a commie?), peace, and freedom for all men. Islam believes in Islam for all men, it believes in submission to Allah and the Prophet for all men, it believes in sharia law for all men, and it believes in either death or the degraded state of dhimmitude for all men who refuse to convert to Islam.
The pope, who is supposed to know so much about Islam, doesn't know this?
Auster goes on to say that Benedict is trapped by Vatican II's "ecumenist embrace of Islam," and thus "cannot meaningfully criticize Islam" while remaining a faithful observer of the council's teachings. Is this true? Does the council's teachings impede Catholic understanding of Islam, or aid it? Somebody who knows more about the Second Vatican Council than I do, please share your thoughts.
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"Auster's wrong. The proper way to interpret VII's documents are in concert with previous and subsequent Church documents. The proper trajectory in this case should be VI-VII-Dominus Iesus.
Also, Nostra Aetate says Muslims "adore" the One God. It doesn't say they love God. That's a pretty crucial difference. One wonders what prominent Muslims would think of BXVI's Deus Caritas Est?"
Ho-hum. Well, I don't think Auster's wrong:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_pope
I'm beginning to wonder if the cause of what's left of Christian culture wouldn't have been better served if he had merely said, "Eat s#&t and die." That might just have rallied the kind of force necessary to win the day. As it stands now, we're still sitting around trembling and sucking our thumbs.>
"He" being Benedict, not Auster.>
Benedict only blew it if you think ai) Islam is a monolith, b) the Pope's job is to be a sort of quasi-Caesar articulating the theological justification for a new Crusade to be implemented by our Glorious Western powers.
If, however, he is a shepherd who is responsible for the flock under the heel of Islamic power, as well as a Pontifex (bridge-builder) who is acutely aware of the fact that the best hope for dealing with Radical Islam is to help non-Radical Islam organize to quell the nuts in their midst, then the apology (such as it was) was probably a good investment.
There are several things wrong with this analysis:
1. The behavior of the vast majority of responsible Muslim leaders, let alone Muslim faithful, demonstrates that Islam effectively is an ideological monolith, regardless of its organizational structure.
2. The fact that Islam has some non-psychotic elements in it doesn't necessarily mean that those elements have the confidence or the power to speak up and be taken seriously by their brethern. After all, the Nazis never won a working majority of seats in the Reichstag until Hitler became chancellor. IOW, most Germans weren't Nazis. That didn't stop the Nazis, however, from brutalizing their opponents once they held and consolidated power.
3. The author of the italicized comments believes that the pope should be a "quasi-Caesar" articulating the theological justification for indulging the barbaric elements of a religion in return for rather dubious (if not non-existant) benefits. That statement accurately describes Benedict's predecesor.
4. The fact that a pope is a "bridge builder" doesn't negate the fact that popes have spoken boldly and forthrightly in the face of persecution. See Pius XI's "Mit brennender Sorge" ("With Burning Anxiety"), issued in 1937 and addressing the Nazi government's oppression. The language would make today's politically correct blanche.>
I haven't heard an "apology" from the Pope. What he said was: a careful reading of his speech would reveal his true intent. And as far as Vatican II is concerned, Pope Benedict made his thoughts clear in December 2005 when he spoke of the "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" to describe those who have willfully misinterpreted Vatican II. Nostra aetate is very naive in its presentation of the interreligious dialogue, but it was written in the 60s before some of these proablems surfaced. Benedict XVI has shown he intends to go beyond the "feel good" approach of this document (and Gaudium et spes, for that matter) and approach issues like interreligious dialogue with clarity as to the differences among the religions, not simply a desire for sterile "dialogue.">
I have to disagree about Nostra Aetate's alleged naivete, Janice. (I agree with the rest of your comment, however.)
I believe N.A. was badly needed and that it has seved a very valuable purpose. I used to stay in touch with Remnant of Israel, a rock-solid orthodox group of Hebrew Catholics. I'm not sure these fine Jewish Catholics--and countless others like them--would feel quite so comfortable in the Catholic Church were it not for Section IV of Nostra Aetate.
Jewish Catholics, at least, see this document's continuing value and importance.>
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