Has the pope just thrown it all away?

Here’s the lead of a story in Expatica.com, an English-language website in Germany:

VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday his controversial speech in Germany, in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as referring to elements of the Muslim faith as “evil and inhuman,” had been misunderstood.

Addressing the faithful during his traditional mid-week general audience in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, the pope said he did not mean to criticize Islam, but rather to promote “dialogue between religions and the modern world”.

Since the story paraphrases the pope rather than quoting him directly, we don’t know if he actually said that he did not mean to criticize Islam. But if he did say it, that means that the pope has not just withdrawn the unnecessary and distracting fighting words he quoted from the 14th century emperor, but that he has withdrawn his entire, profound critique of the spiritual core of the Islamic religion that he presented in his September 12 address. What, then, was the point? The whole Western world has just engaged in a week of excited analysis of the pope’s important speech, the most important statement about Islam that has come from any Western leader in our time. And now he’s saying he didn’t mean it?

If the pope did indeed say that he did not mean to criticize Islam, then he is not a serious man and I will never pay attention to him again.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 20, 2006 03:33 PM | Send