Another worse than useless Western leader

In 2004, the then Cardinal Ratzinger said that the admission of Turkey into the EU would be a “grave error.” His election as pope was welcomed by traditionalists not least because he was thought to be a man who understood the Islamic threat and was prepared to defend what remained of the Christian West against it.

Today, following Pope Benedict’s pathetic surrender to Islam following his thoughtlessly sweeping attack on Islam at Regensburg in September, he has also changed his position on Turkey:

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg)—Pope Benedict XVI said he backs Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after meeting the pontiff upon his arrival in Ankara for his first visit to a Muslim country.

The Pope told Erdogan that while the Vatican seeks to stay out of politics it “desires Turkey’s membership in the EU,”’ Erdogan said at a news conference after the 15 minute meeting that initiated his four-day visit to Turkey.

Pretty miserable. But, as I also indicated at the time of the post-Regensburg betrayal, this new betrayal is not all that shocking when we remember the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate which embraces Muslims as fellow “adorers of the one God,” which Benedict fully endorses, and which, during his “Stations of the Apology” tour following Regensburg, he quoted to a crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

As I realized at the time, so long as Nostra Aetate remains authoritative, any papal statement critical of Islam is nothing more than an unprincipled exception to Nostra Aetate, meaning a non-liberal attitude that is not backed up by a non-liberal principle, and therefore is inevitably rolled over by liberal principle. Thus Ratzinger said in ’04 that Turkey’s admission into the EU would be a grave error, because Europe is Christian and Turkey is not. But that was just a vestigial, non-liberal attitude to which Ratzinger was giving voice. The only authoritative principle for him was that Islam and Christianity are basically one, because Christians and Muslims both “adore the one God.” Nostra Aetate also commands Catholics to “forget” its 1,400 years of defensive warfare against Islamic invasions. As a result, as soon as the pope’s non-liberal desire to exclude Turkey from Europe came up against the pope’s liberal principle that Christians must forget what Islam actually is and embrace Muslims, the non-liberal attitude surrendered to the liberal principle.

The lesson is that only individuals who stand on the firm ground of non-liberal principle can resist the liberal destruction of the West.

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EG writes:

I’m not surprised at all by Joey R and the Turks. This all goes back to a hard lesson I learned years ago: A person should be considered a defender of the West and its founding peoples only if he overtly states his position on this.

If you need to “read” into a statement, or if the assertion is cultural only and not racial/civilizational, or any other caveats, you are going to be disappointed in the end.

Assume that Benny had originally said:

“Turkey does not belong in the EU. Turkey is an Asian, Islamic, non-Western nation. Turks are not Europeans. Adding Turkey to the EU would destroy Europe, destroy the West, and fundamentally alter the meaning of what it means to be European and Western. Allowing Turkey into the EU would also mean the abandonment of a Christian cultural identity for Europe. It would also mean free reign into Europe for millions of unassimilable Turks. It would also lead to a slippery slope in which North African and other non-European nations are allowed into the EU. This is an abomination and the Vatican opposes it.”

If he had said this, then, sure, his current comments would be a shocking betrayal. But he didn’t say that, so it is all par for the course. Majorities in European nations do not want Turkish membership, but since European nations are not democracies, but merely leftist authoritarian multicultural states that happen to have multiparty “elections,” the will of the people is not translated into action. The “elites” know better, you see.

And Benny is one of these “elites” …

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 28, 2006 02:14 PM | Send