Word: regensburgers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...soft. Back in September, Benedict broke fresh ground for his ancient office by delivering an intellectually charged - and baldly controversial - lecture on faith, reason and violence. It was the young papacy's quintessential Ratzinger moment, as the 79-year-old professor-turned-pope returned to his old university in Regensburg to draw a theological line in the sand that set off a worldwide debate about how Islam and the West should talk to each other. Yet last week, that same man, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was famous for his doctrinal rigidity, was in Turkey doing and saying things...
...credit. The softer tones on Islam, the visit to the mosque, openly warm exchanges with Benedict's Orthodox counterpart, the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I - and no major glitches - means the Pope returns to Rome with a new dose of what he sorely needed when he left: consensus. The Regensburg speech, and the risk it might incite violence, divided many Catholics - even those who may have instinctively agreed with its content. Turkey's fence-mending, instead, has the potential to instantly unite Catholics in support of their Pope, even those who ultimately want him to hold the hard line...
...bluntly questioned in September for being susceptible to violence. Benedict spoke repeatedly of friendship, respect and reconciliation, citing the common roots of the two religions in their ancestry in Abraham. Rather than again propose the new approach to relations between the two faiths he'd launched in his Regensburg speech, he quoted his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who said on his own trip to Turkey in 1979 that Christians and Muslims must "recognize and develop the spiritual bonds that unite us." The most confrontational and politically charged word in fact came from Turkey's head of religious affairs...
Just over a month after his controversial speech at Regensburg University—on “Faith and Reason”—that enraged the Muslim world, Pope Benedict XVI landed in Ankara yesterday for an equally controversial trip to the largest Muslim “democracy” in the world, Turkey. Set amidst the threats against the Pope’s life and protests in Istanbul 20,000 strong, we must see this trip for what it is: a courageous act of faith that aims to rebuild both political and religious bridges with Islam...
...here, tucked inside a day otherwise focused on reconciliation, may be the first act in the "post-POST-Regensburg" phase of Benedict's papal diplomacy. How clearly can he draw the lines on the question of religious freedom? When will the "frank" public dialogue with Islam recommence? Can he lay out a new vision for a modern secular state - in both the Western and Muslim worlds - that gives due space to faith? And, perhaps just as importantly, can he keep the world's attention? The answers will depend on whether Benedict can strike the right balance between his newfound flexibility...