Word: regensberg
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...focus of the attention. Indeed, the most highly charged moment of Benedict XVI's papacy thus far came in the gracious confines of a German university lecture hall. On that late afternoon of September 12, 2006, the Pope's discourse on faith, reason and violence at the University of Regensberg, where he'd once taught theology, was greeted with long and warm applause by the audience of academics proud that their fellow Bavarian intellectual had risen to the throne of St. Peter. Only later was the lasting significance of the lecture registered: Muslims expressed outrage at references to the prophet...
...opposed to the "inter-civilization" fallout from the 2006 Regensberg address, the battle lines being drawn around La Sapienza were part of an ongoing internal struggle within the West. The public skirmishes occur on the now familiar terrain of bioethics, abortion, Darwin and separation of church and state. But being a lifelong man of study and reflection, Benedict also sees the source for much of the conflict in how ideas germinate and spread on university campuses. Biographers say his experience as a professor during the student upheavals of the late 1960s - where he believed a godless pursuit of personal freedom...
...Forty years later, he appears only more convinced that something is awry. In the same Regensberg lecture that criticized Islam for lacking a fundamental belief in reason, the Pope was also sending a warning to the West that reason itself was suffocating faith and destroying its historical identity. By offering himself up as victim of the La Sapienza professors he can cite further evidence for this argument right in his own backyard...
...faith, reason and violence that set off widespread criticism in the Muslim world, punctuated by acts of violence, including the burning of churches and the killing of a nun in Somalia. Benedict was quick to turn to the "spirit of Assisi" in trying to calm the waters after his Regensberg speech, inviting Rome-based Muslim diplomats for a meeting in the Vatican and visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, where he prayed shoulder-to-shoulder with the Turkish imam. Though tensions remain, a letter earlier this month addressed to the Pope and other Christian leaders, signed by 138 prominent Muslim...
...ultimately, to stand out the way John Paul II did on world affairs, Benedict will again have to use his skills as theologian-philosopher to make a political point - adding a bigger dose of diplomacy than he did last year in Regensberg. He had a chance during an address last Friday to Vienna-based diplomats to lay out his broad vision of world affairs, but he chose not to take it. With key figures at the International Atomic Energy Agency present, for example, he made no mention of growing tensions between the West and Iran. Still, Benedict may soon...