Still More on the Papal Address Outrage

Iraq the Model has weighed in on the Papal Address Outrage with a thoughtful article (Tuesday, September 19 post) focusing on the Islamization of Iraq and attitudes toward 'conversion by the sword.' It's worth reading. I can't remember which of the brothers posted it, but his conclusion spoke to thoughts I have been having as I have reflected on the precarious situation of Christian minorities in Islamic countries right now:

Some accuse the pope of bad timing but I wonder what is going to be the best time to accept criticism and accept questions? Next year? a decade from now? When?

There will be no such time for our clerics who derive their power from this history, and to them, questioning or criticizing this history is a threat to their holiness and power.
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The Moderate Voice posted a report that Mohammed Qaddaffi has called for Benedict XVI to convert. (I'd link to full details on this myself, but going to this guy's blog seems to make my computer lock up. Oh, don't worry, lots of things make my computer lock up. It will probably be just fine for everyone else.) Th M.V. quips, more or less:

I could see it happen...right after the President of Iran gets Bar Mitzvahed.
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Some of the flap that arose over the Pope's address is directly attributable to media spin; Jimmy Akin has posted some comments on this. It looks like the BBC zeroed in for a 'grabber' headline (or maybe a less savory motive,) and things went downhill from there.

Several sources have now pointed out that a minor variance in translation--the exclusion of one or two short phrases in the English version (which has since been corrected) altered the sense of the Pope's words enough that his comments seemed a good deal harsher initially. Benedict's address actually included the observation that Manuel Paleologus addressed his commentary on Islam "with a brusqueness that astonishes us."

I think that the Holy Father was trying, with his words, to distance his own views from the "brusqueness" of Paleologus in an effort to not inflame the oh-so-easily inflamed passions of the Islamofascists. Perhaps, he hoped to appeal to Islam's better nature: "Look, this is how the rest of the world sees you; you can change this view by changing your actions." Hope springs eternal.

With all due respect to the Papa, Manuel Paleologus' brusqueness doesn't surprise me at all. At the time he made his now-famous remarks, after all, he was either living as a hostage in the Ottoman court (almost certainly resisting proselytism,) or holding off an Ottoman seige from his formerly glorious Constantinople. Give the guy credit: he persevered in his Christianity, protected his people for as long as he could, and eventually died a monk. But perhaps it's a bit much to ask that, given his circumstances in 1391, he get up every single morning feeling like "an Alleluia from head to toe." The Lord knows I don't, and nobody's holding me hostage or trying to make me abandon my faith. If the "Religion of Peace" wasn't exactly giving Manuel the Peace that Passeth Understanding, maybe there was a good reason.

Brusque or not, Paleologus' purpose, like that of the Pope, was to appeal to reason in order to dialogue. If there is to be any peace and justice in the world, Islam is going to have to learn that it's not a dialogue if one side gets to do all the talking, and it's not a dialogue if one side is above scrutiny while the other can be criticized freely. I can't think of any other religion on earth that is so unable to cope rationally with constructive criticism.

I have been profoundly concerned for Christian minorities in Muslim countries since the flap began. Like Paleologus, they are pretty much in a hostage situation. But it's worse, because they are also at the mercy of mobs. One supposedly "moderate" cleric has already declared Friday a Muslim "day of anger;" I'm fearing a repeat of Kristallnacht, or worse.

Still, I am intensely aware that if it hadn't been the Pope last Tuesday, it would have been the Chair of the Southern Baptist convention tomorrow, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church next week, or the Dalai Lama a fortnight hence (okay, so I exaggerate a bit.) The point, as ITM succinctly put it in my quote above, is that unless we are all prepared to rationally concede that Islam is "pure" and above reproach (a view held by most practicing Muslims, but few other humans of any or no faith.) there is never going to be a "good time" to question or criticize it--and if we don't start asking some hard questions now, that situation is never going to get any better.

Pray for our Brothers and Sisters in Christ who live in Muslim countries, and for all the Dhimmi. I fear it will go hard for them.
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UPDATE:
Father Stephanos at Me Monk, Me Meander offers his own "Junior High Outline" of the Pope's address, as well as some UNEXPECTED GOOD NEWS that blew me clean out of the water! It appears that Islamic Jihad Militants in a West Bank Village have turned out to protect a Catholic church from vandalism. Much more of this, I may have to give up sarcasm for a day or two. I pray it's true--he has pictures posted!

Three More Things...

I have been reading and musing on the Muslim Outrage du jour over the weekend, and finally managed to think about the situation somewhat calmly. A few observations:

I have already mentioned the Catholic Londoner blogger who photographed a Muslim demonstration outside Westminister Cathedral this Sunday. According to the post, they were out there from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day, many with faces covered (and not just the females either. Big surprise.) The signs they brandish are something to behold: "Pope Go To Hell," "Jesus is the Slave of Allah," "Islam Will Conquer Rome," to mention a few. Obviously the respect these people demand for their own religion is not something they feel particularly bound to reciprocate. Heck, if those slogans aren't calculated to offend to the highest degree, I don't know what they think will.

What struck me, however, was the print-shop quality of the signs. Nobody rushed home in a frenzy from Friday worship to hand-stencil these on the back of an old science fair project. I know computers make jobs like these faster and easier than they used to be, but really! If the local Islamic society doesn't have its own personal poster shop, it at least knows a printer willing to drop all his other jobs to work on theirs. Kinko's will have to watch its back. I wonder if there's some kind of Muslim Rapid Reaction force in London that watches for outrage opportunities and then gets into gear making appropriate signs, organizing the mob, excuse me, the crowd, getting speakers, etc. The average D.C. Mall demonstration spends weeks or months getting their ducks in a row, but in London, in four days (three if you went to mosque Friday) we have Instant Protest--just add demonstrators.
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Not being too up on my medieval history, I decided that the best way to get to the bottom of what all the fuss was about (after reading the Papal address that started all the furor, that is) was to read up on Manuel Paleologus, whom the Holy Father quoted. So, I got out the appropriate Britannica volume (1971 edition.) Yes, I know they have them on disc now. I got out the book anyway. I'm a Luddite; so there. The basic info on Paleologus is going to have changed since 1971?

Paleologus' life had more ups and downs than a carnival ride, so I won't go into all the details here. In brief, after family struggles over his father's throne that should make us all thankful we didn't get his relatives, he ended up in custody at the Ottoman Sultan's court. Now, the way I read that "in custody" bit, he wasn't there on a foreign exchange program. He was there as a hostage, presumably to prevent him and deter any more of his relatives from attempting to return to power. My bet is that he was, during his sojourn at the Ottoman court, also under less-than-subtle pressure to convert; at least one source I've read places the conversation that led to all the controversy during this time. He escaped around 1391. Back in Constantinople, Paleologus was crowned emperor, and proceeded to hold off an Ottoman seige for seven months.

Eventually Paleologus was forced to accept tribute to the Ottoman empire. He traveled to western Europe to beg help, but received only promises. Meanwhile, the Sultan was defeated and the empire erupted into civil war; by clever politicking Paleologus was able to improve matters somewhat for his empire for a time. After additional upheaveals, he again ended up having to pay tribute, gave it all up, and became a monk for the last year of his life. Britannica says:

Manuel was an intelligent ruler, but with the meagre resources of his shrunken and enfeebled empire he was unable to take advantage of the misfortunes of his enemies. He was a patron of arts and letters, and himself composed theological, rhetorical, and poetical works; and his correspondence is of considerable historical interest.
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Wikipedia has a very good article on the controversy, and makes some improtant points about what the Holy Father actually said and what was published in translation.

No Greater Love

According to AP, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, the nun murdered in Somalia last week, used to joke about there being a bullet in Somalia with her name engraved on it and died forgiving her killers.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, said Christ on the cross.
I think Sister Leonella's killers knew perfectly well what they were doing, and may have been waiting for an excuse to do it.

Father, forgive them anyway, for Sister Leonella's sake. And give us the grace to forgive them as well.

(Hat tip: The Anchoress, Tail Rank.)

Outrage of the Week

The gift of humor is a great salvo in times of trial. Humor clears the air, and makes troubles seem smaller. I often find that spotting an element of the absurd in something leads to greater understanding. When I write here, I often highlight the absurd (which some doubtless find annoying.) This isn't even something I do consciously, most of the time--I'm not sitting here over the keyboard wondering, "Let's see, how can I spin this so it's funny?" More often than not, funny finds me.

Funny isn't finding me today. There's plenty going on in the world that is absurd, but none of it is funny.
--It's absurd, but not funny, when public figures cannot speak their minds without violent mobs gathering all over the world to threaten, insult, and intimidate.
--It's absurd, but not funny, when churches are burned because of one sentence in a speech of several pages--some of them not even of the speaker's denomination.
--It's absurd, but not funny, when innocent servants of God are viciously gunned down on the grounds of a children's hospital because in someone's sick mind they represent one with whom they are offended.
--It's absurd, but not funny, that after a sincere apology has been proffered and a number of Muslim associations have accepted it, this is still not enough for those who seek any excuse for their murderous rampages. What would be enough? Grovelling and a conversion? The handover of the Vatican? What?
--It's absurd, but not funny, that the practitioners of Islam regularly demean and oppress practitioners of other religions, but cannot stand the slightest scrutiny of their own.
--It's absurd, but not funny, that anything less than rhapsodic treatment of Islam is a resurgence of the Crusades, when it was Islam's own bloody legacy of conversion by the sword that launched those Crusades in the first place, and Islam's continued bloody legacy of control through terror that has foreign troops on 'Islamic' soil today.
--It's absurd, but not at all funny, that the "Religion of Peace" turns to uncontrolled violence at the mere turn of a phrase.
--It's completely absurd, but not funny, that large numbers of secular, nonreligious or antireligious people still can't seem to get over their own Schaedenfreude to the realization that in actively or passively supporting these barbarians they sow the seeds of their own destruction. We Christians may be annoying, but we don't execute you for your sins and there's nothing in our theology that makes that likely to change.

If it isn't patently obvious, I'm in no condition today to deal with the fallout from His Holiness Pope Benedict's remark--one brief medieval reference in a long address on the subjects of faith, reason, and the lack of reason in violence--in "a hard intellectual light." Fortunately for me, others have already addressed this matter with reason, good sense, and perhaps even an intact sense of humor. Father Stephanos of Me Monk, Me Meander has been posting on this situation over the past week and has been a font of excellent articles and astute commentary. A Catholic Londoner who took and published pictures of a demonstration outside Winchester Cathedral this Sunday is also well worth the read.

I will post more when I've calmed down, and gotten some real work done.

Flying on 9/11

As fate would have it, I had to fly to our nation's capital on 9/11. I expected harrowing security and many delays. On the contrary, from journey's start at Sticks airfield to its conclusion at good ol' Reagan National (which, I figure, I had not been to in decades) was very smooth. No extra intrusions, and no unusual searches.

The real power of terrorism never been what the terrorists can actually accomplish in terms of death and destruction. Their power comes from what we do to ourselves in reaction to a terror event. Our attitudes and our emotions are both the target and the real weapon of the terrorist. Our best response as a nation, and as a people is to "be not afraid."

Thoughts for September 11

Act with courage, and may the Lord Be with those who do well.
2 Chronicles 19:11

In memory of the police and firefighters who gave their lives in the service of others Sept. 11, 2001, and in honor of all police, firefighters, and rescue workers:

The noblest service comes from nameless hands.
And the best servant does his work unseen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

The first verse of the U. S. national Anthem is often sung and fairly well-known; the subsequent verses are infrequently sung and frequently forgotten. I add one below that I believe is particularly relevant today:

Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Francis Scott Key

What stands if freedom fall?
Rudyard Kipling

Post -August 22: Armageddon tired of this

It is well past the fateful day of August 22, and the world is still here. It is still here just like it was on April 22, 1844, January 1, 2000, and, for that matter, September 12, 2001. Frank Zappa once said that there would be no nuclear war, because there was "too much real estate," probably referring to all the money the capitalists would lose from spoiled land. I tend to take more comfort about end-of-the-world worries from the following:

But as for that day and hour [the time when Heaven and Earth will pass away], nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing until the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes.
- Matthew 24:36-39

You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.
- Matthew 24:43