A nun savagely killed in Somalia, flaming effigies of the pope, threats to conquer Rome — isn't there a bit of irony in the violent and flagrantly unreasonable reaction of some Muslims in the Middle East to a speech by Pope Benedict XVI about, well, reason? Unfortunately, Michael Medeiros' column (Oct. 18) overlooks the stunning paradox, not to mention the true crux of Benedict's sophisticated and thoroughly modern remarks.
Let's begin with the first issue that Medeiros raises: Did the pope actually malign the Muslim faith by claiming that Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things? A quick review of the speech reveals that Benedict did not endorse this point of view. In fact, the much-contested quote falls squarely within an objective account of a conversation between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos and his Persian interlocutor. The pope hardly even hides behind the quote, going so far as to criticize the emperor for his "unacceptable brusqueness." Rather, Benedict recounts the exchange to elucidate a much larger claim — namely, that "not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature."
Medeiros isn't alone in missing the point. Indeed, many — including The New York Times editorial board — failed to realize that the pope was actually expounding on the decidedly undogmatic principle that God's revelation and commandments never contradict human reason. To accept blindly what contradicts reason — rather than what merely transcends it — constitutes fanaticism. It excludes the possibility of conversation through the sole universal language — human reason. In an age in which faith and reason are often seen to be in conflict with one another, Benedict's speech was intended to advance the ancient Christian belief that faith and reason are, as Pope John Paul II famously wrote, "like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth." Hardly the retrograde musings of a reactionary pontiff.
The second question that Medeiros raises is whether the pope is actually culpable for the retaliatory violence in the Middle East. Medeiros certainly thinks so. He claims that the Vatican's "ethnocentric attitudes" support the "old prejudice" that Islam is a religion of violence. It was really these "old prejudices," he implies, that drove Muslims to defend their faith through acts of violence. If you've been lost in the fuzzy logic of this inference, you're not alone. Rather than settle on the ultimately peripheral question of culpability, it's worthwhile to reflect instead on the Muslim response to the speech, for it becomes abundantly clear that many in the Middle East lack a constructive forum for voicing their dissent. For example, whenever the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledges to push Israel into the sea, Israelis don't react by burning the Qur'an or threatening to seize Mecca. For some Muslims to respond in this extreme fashion to an academic speech given before a small university audience reveals an unwillingness or inability to engage with the larger world, where dialogue is the norm, not the exception. By ignoring this fact, Medeiros himself subscribes to the ethnocentric presumption that Muslims in the Middle East are hopelessly captive to their religious passions and thus cannot be expected to resist their violent impulses. That Benedict's critics in New York and Princeton justify senseless acts of violence under this subtly patronizing and deterministic pretext is worrisome.
Pointing fingers thwarts positive dialogue, so I'd like to end this response to Medeiros' column by considering the role that the Catholic Church can and should play in the strained conversation between Islam and the West. As Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council's statement on non-Christian faiths, explains, the Catholic Church recognizes that Muslims "adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself" — that is, the God whom Christians believe to be the father of Jesus Christ. The document urges Catholics and Muslims to "to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote ... peace and freedom." Just as Benedict should continue to heed the Second Vatican Council's exhortation for dialogue, he should not shy away in the future from voicing concerns about Islam. In the absence of any large number of self-reflective voices inside certain Muslim communities and thoughtful critics in Europe's parliaments or America's universities, Benedict must stay his course. If the pope allows himself to be bullied into silence, opportunities for conversation — both supportive and critical — will quickly diminish. As Benedict said in his closing remarks, "It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures." Christian Sahner is an Art & Archaeology Major from Maplewood, N.J. He can be reached at csahner@princeton.edu.
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