Coolassprov MC
16-09-06, 14:41
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873926,00.html
After a quiet first year as pontiff, God's Rottweiler shows his teeth
Pope believes his church should take tougher line on Islam
John Hooper in Rome
Saturday September 16, 2006
The Guardian
The anniversary of Pope Benedict's election in the spring focused a question that had been forming in the minds of Vatican-watchers throughout his first 12 months: "What happened to God's Rottweiler?"
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican ministry that once ran the Inquisition - Joseph Ratzinger had done a fine job for Pope John Paul of intimidating the thinkers of the Roman Catholic church into sullen conformity.
But since he emerged on to the balcony of St Peter's basilica after his election in April 2005, the guard dog seemed to have become a pussycat - a benign old gent with a harmless taste for anachronistic headgear and a habit of boring his audiences with abstruse theological discourse.
The German commentator Wolfgang Cooper had cautioned before Benedict's election that the new Pope was an academic who "prefers intellectual discussions". And, indeed, by the time the papal jet touched down near Munich last Saturday, Karol Wojtyla's snappy soundbites were no more than a fond recollection in the collective memory of the Vatican press corps.
On the day he uttered the phrases that have prompted such uproar in the Muslim world, Pope Benedict celebrated an open-air mass. How did he try to reach out to the crowd? Initially, by talking about the medieval theological compendiums known as summae - not exactly a topic of burning currency in pious, rural southern Germany.
It is tempting to see the Pope's controversial reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor in the same light - as the gaffe of an other-wordly intellectual who does not stop to think that his words are going to be seized on by journalists.
However, he more or less apologised in advance for the "startling brusqueness" of the emperor's remark that Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things. That suggests he was fully aware of the impact it could make.
What is more, it is clear from the passage that followed that the Pope fully supports, if not the emperor's language, then certainly his underlying contention - that holy war is at odds with reason.
There are two further motives for thinking Benedict is ready to upset the believers in other faiths rather than shrink from what he believes needs to be said (or not said).
First, he has done it before. At Auschwitz, in May, he appalled many Jews by passing up what they saw as a historic opportunity for a German pope to apologise for the Roman Catholic church's conduct in the second world war. The second factor is that Pope Benedict has signalled clearly that he favours a tougher line in his church's dealings with Islam.
The key word in the Vatican now is "reciprocity". The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is increasingly of the opinion that a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim world is not possible while Christians are denied religious freedom in Muslim states.
One of the Pope's earliest personnel moves was to send Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the Vatican's leading expert on Islam, to Cairo as the Holy See's envoy to the Arab League. The department he left behind, the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, has been absorbed into the Vatican's "culture ministry".
That reshuffle is one of several major changes effected by Pope Benedict. With what, for the Vatican, is uncharacteristic haste, he has put new men in several top jobs including the secretariat of state. He has set a new agenda for the Vatican whose new concerns include not only relations with the Islamic world but also a redoubled attempt to heal the breach with Orthodox Christianity and a drive to assert the role of God in the processes of creation and evolution.
At the same time - and in contrast to the approach of his predecessor - Benedict has begun to deliver on his pledge to drive the "filth" from the church. In May, in a singularly public and humiliating manner, he disciplined one of the church's most influential priests, the head of the Legionnaires of Christ movement, who had been accused of sexual abuse.
After a quiet first year as pontiff, God's Rottweiler shows his teeth
Pope believes his church should take tougher line on Islam
John Hooper in Rome
Saturday September 16, 2006
The Guardian
The anniversary of Pope Benedict's election in the spring focused a question that had been forming in the minds of Vatican-watchers throughout his first 12 months: "What happened to God's Rottweiler?"
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican ministry that once ran the Inquisition - Joseph Ratzinger had done a fine job for Pope John Paul of intimidating the thinkers of the Roman Catholic church into sullen conformity.
But since he emerged on to the balcony of St Peter's basilica after his election in April 2005, the guard dog seemed to have become a pussycat - a benign old gent with a harmless taste for anachronistic headgear and a habit of boring his audiences with abstruse theological discourse.
The German commentator Wolfgang Cooper had cautioned before Benedict's election that the new Pope was an academic who "prefers intellectual discussions". And, indeed, by the time the papal jet touched down near Munich last Saturday, Karol Wojtyla's snappy soundbites were no more than a fond recollection in the collective memory of the Vatican press corps.
On the day he uttered the phrases that have prompted such uproar in the Muslim world, Pope Benedict celebrated an open-air mass. How did he try to reach out to the crowd? Initially, by talking about the medieval theological compendiums known as summae - not exactly a topic of burning currency in pious, rural southern Germany.
It is tempting to see the Pope's controversial reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor in the same light - as the gaffe of an other-wordly intellectual who does not stop to think that his words are going to be seized on by journalists.
However, he more or less apologised in advance for the "startling brusqueness" of the emperor's remark that Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things. That suggests he was fully aware of the impact it could make.
What is more, it is clear from the passage that followed that the Pope fully supports, if not the emperor's language, then certainly his underlying contention - that holy war is at odds with reason.
There are two further motives for thinking Benedict is ready to upset the believers in other faiths rather than shrink from what he believes needs to be said (or not said).
First, he has done it before. At Auschwitz, in May, he appalled many Jews by passing up what they saw as a historic opportunity for a German pope to apologise for the Roman Catholic church's conduct in the second world war. The second factor is that Pope Benedict has signalled clearly that he favours a tougher line in his church's dealings with Islam.
The key word in the Vatican now is "reciprocity". The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is increasingly of the opinion that a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim world is not possible while Christians are denied religious freedom in Muslim states.
One of the Pope's earliest personnel moves was to send Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the Vatican's leading expert on Islam, to Cairo as the Holy See's envoy to the Arab League. The department he left behind, the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, has been absorbed into the Vatican's "culture ministry".
That reshuffle is one of several major changes effected by Pope Benedict. With what, for the Vatican, is uncharacteristic haste, he has put new men in several top jobs including the secretariat of state. He has set a new agenda for the Vatican whose new concerns include not only relations with the Islamic world but also a redoubled attempt to heal the breach with Orthodox Christianity and a drive to assert the role of God in the processes of creation and evolution.
At the same time - and in contrast to the approach of his predecessor - Benedict has begun to deliver on his pledge to drive the "filth" from the church. In May, in a singularly public and humiliating manner, he disciplined one of the church's most influential priests, the head of the Legionnaires of Christ movement, who had been accused of sexual abuse.