Word: vaticans
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...with moderate German Muslims in the city of Cologne that August, Benedict delivered a fairly blunt warning that "those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations." In Rome, he removed Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a relatively dovish Islam expert, as head of the Vatican's office on interreligious dialogue and replaced an ongoing study of Christian violence during the Crusades with one on Islamic violence today. And he has stepped up the Vatican's insistence on reciprocity--demanding the same rights for Christians in Muslim-majority countries that Muslims enjoy in the West...
...Says a Vatican insider with a shrug: "Everyone's asking, Did the Pope make a mistake? Was it intentional? It doesn't really matter at this point." Whether Benedict had actually intended Regensburg to be the catalyst, he had become a player...
...religion. But when suicide bombers today go to their fates with the Koran's verses on their lips, it invites questions about Islam's credentials as a religion that is willing to police its own claims of peace and tolerance. As conservative Catholic scholar Michael Novak points out, the Vatican's pacifism gives Benedict unmatched moral standing to press this point. "Being against war, he can say tougher things ... than any President or Prime Minister can. His role is to represent Western civilization...
High-ranking Vatican sources say Benedict will avoid repeating the Islam-and-violence trope in any form as blatant as Regensburg's. Instead, suggests Father Thomas Reese, a senior research fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown, the Pope may take a less broad-brush approach to the issue by repeating his sentiment from Cologne: "He could say, 'You, like me, are concerned about terrorism' and he would like to see Islamic clerics be more up front condemning it." Once over the hump, happier topics should be easy to find. "Quite frankly," says...
Nonetheless, the open letter was framed in respectful terms and was welcomed at the Vatican. It is noteworthy, however, that the Pope has not retreated from his challenge to Islam. Moreover, under his leadership, the Vatican has taken a much stronger line in insisting on "reciprocity" in relations with Islam. Mosques proliferate throughout cities in the West, while any expression of non-Islamic religion is strictly forbidden in many Muslim countries. In the Vatican and elsewhere, the feeling has been growing that the way of tolerance, dialogue and multicultural sensitivity can no longer be a one-way street. In fact...