Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi was asked after papal visit to Jordan's al-Hussein Ben-Talal mosque, whether the Pope's view on Islam has changed since Regensburg. "It's a journey, there's progress," he said. "We have to learn from what the Muslims tell us about Islam."
Pope Benedict's Latest Take on Islam
Under Pope Benedict XVI's reign, the Vatican dossier on Islam could be entitled: "Regensburg, and Everything After." Regensburg was the professor Pope's landmark 2006 discourse at his former university that included a nasty historical citation about the prophet Mohammed and provocatively asked if Islam lacks reason, making it inherently prone to violence.
The worldwide protests among Muslims, including a handful of church burnings and the killing of a nun, forced the Pope to quickly change his approach, and soften his tone.
But while he has spent the past two-plus years reaching out to Islamic leaders, Benedict has subtly tried to keep alive the hard questions he posed at the German university. Benedict has expanded on this formula since landing Friday in the moderate Muslim kingdom of Jordan, the first stop on his eight-day Holy Land pilgrimage.
He told King Abdullah II upon his arrival in Amman that he has "deep respect" for Islam, and on Saturday he was welcomed in the country's largest mosque and gave another fascinating — if less radioactive — philosophical treatise.
Indeed, it is in dissecting this Pope's ideas — often now cloaked in more diplomatic language that was absent in Regensburg — that we can see that he is still preoccupied with the contemporary interplay (or lack thereof) of faith and reason, and the risk of rising inter-religious conflict. Speaking after a visit inside the al-Hussein Ben-Talal mosque, the Pope acknowledged that "tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied."
But Benedict said that Muslims and Christians have a shared obligation to counter the contemporary idea that "religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world."
Instead, he said, faith is in fact necessary in a world in which reason alone can become a form of extremism. "When human reason humbly allows itself to be purified by faith... it is strengthened to resist presumption and reach beyond its own limitations."
This idea of a faithless allegiance to reason as the cause of rising secularism is a concern of both Muslim and Christian leaders, and was a much less cited theme of his Regensburg lecture.
But the source of tension two years ago was the flipside: Benedict's contention that Islam has an absolutist conception of God that doesn't leave room for reason. On Saturday, however lightly, he seemed to return to this point.
"Christians describe God, among other ways, as creative Reason, which orders and guides the world," the Pope said. "Muslims worship God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who has spoken to humanity."
The Pope seems to still believe that this distinction — between Christian faith that is "purified" by human reason, and Muslim faith that is simply received from God — is worth deeper exploration with his Islamic counterparts.
"Religion," he said at an earlier discourse Saturday, "can be corrupted .... when pressed into the service of ignorance or prejudice, contempt, violence and abuse." He called for a "mature belief in God." The speech at the mosque intertwined theology and a more nuanced view of current events than the purely philosophical discourse in 2006. "Often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division and at times even violence in society."
Jordan is the ideal setting to return to these sensitive themes, home to the royal Hashemite lineage that traces back to Mohammed, and a modern tradition of religious tolerance. This was also where a group of Islamic scholars from around the world first launched a response to Regensburg, which led to the creation of an official Muslim-Catholic dialogue that kicked off with a summit at the Vatican in November on the religions' shared principles of love of God and love of neighbor.
Speaking before the Pope on Saturday, Prince Ghaszi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal, the top religious advisor to the Jordanian King, thanked Benedict for having expressed regret for "the hurt caused by the [Regensburg] lecture to Muslims" and for other words and gestures since. Still, Ghaszi pointedly condemned "distorted depictions" in the West of the roots of Islam as "responsible for much historical and cultural tension between Christians and Muslims."
He said it was now clear that the Pope's comments about the prophet in 2006 was just "a citation in an academic lecture," but added that it is incumbent on Muslims to explain the Prophets' example above all with deeds of virtue, charity, piety and goodwill."
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi was asked afterwards whether the Pope's view on Islam has changed since Regensburg. "It's a journey, there's progress," he said. "We have to learn from what the Muslims tell us about Islam." This Pope has sought to infuse "frankness" in the inter-faith dialogue that was a cornerstone of John Paul II's papacy. But talking about both what unites and divides different religious traditions, requires not only talking frankly but listening carefully.
By Jeff Israely / Amman Saturday, May. 09, 2009
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POPE STUDYING ISLAM - CONCEPT OF GOD - FROM MUSLIMS NOW
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Explaining his demand that Benedict hide the very symbol of the Catholicism he represents, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the spiritual authority responsible for overseeing Judaism's most sacred site, told TIME, "I wouldn't go into a church wearing Jewish symbols, out of respect for the place, and I would expect that the Pope would act the same here."
There exists among ultra-Orthodox Jews "a certain allergy towards the cross." Asking the Pope to remove his cross, he says, is "part of the ongoing paranoia of Jewish history. But it doesn't show respect for the leader of another major religion."
Pope also plans to tour the nearby Dome of the Rock, built on the site where Christianity, Judaism and Islam all believe that God prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son. For centuries, the shrine has been under Muslim control. A leading Muslim cleric, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, Chief Justice of the Shariah law courts in East Jerusalem, told TIME that cross or not, the Pope would be honored. "We would never object to his physical appearance. We don't believe in interfering in another religion's affairs."
Jerusalem Rabbi Insists the Pope Must Hide His Cross
Pope Benedict XVI hopes his planned visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall next month will be taken as a gesture of reconciliation in the long-troubled relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church. But at least one influential rabbi will take offense — unless the pontiff removes or conceals the golden cross he wears on a chain around his neck, "out of respect" for the Jews.
Explaining his demand that Benedict hide the very symbol of the Catholicism he represents, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the spiritual authority responsible for overseeing Judaism's most sacred site, told TIME, "I wouldn't go into a church wearing Jewish symbols, out of respect for the place, and I would expect that the Pope would act the same here."
Quoting King Solomon, the rabbi says that the Temple in Jerusalem (the Western Wall is believed to have been a part of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.) was "a house of prayer for all people, not just Jews." He added: "We welcome this Pope. But he should show respect for other religions."
But Catholics counter that it is the rabbi who should show a bit more respect for the pontiff, and not ask him to hide the cross that symbolizes his faith. Said Wadie Abunassar, Media Coordinator in Jerusalem for Benedict's trip, said, "I can't see the Holy Father removing his cross for any reason. He always wears a cross."
Given the legacy of bitterness left by centuries of Jewish persecution at the hands of the Catholic church, the Pope's sartorial choices during his visit to the Wall are unlikely to be the only political minefield of the trip. The Jewish community is in an uproar over Benedict's decision in January to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, a decision for which the Pope later apologized. During his Jerusalem visit, Benedict will pay respects at the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem, but he will bypass a room containing a plaque claiming that the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, failed to stand up for the Jews against the Nazis.
Even though the Vatican says it has received no formal request for the Pope to remove his golden crucifix during his visit to the Wall, Rabbi Rabinovitch's comments are bound to raise tensions on the eve of the trip. Israel's Foreign Ministry tried to smooth the waters by saying in a statement that "in accordance with rules of hospitality and dignity," the State of Israel will not prevent the Pope from wearing his cross when he visits the Western Wall.
But it is the rabbis rather than the government who hold sway at the Western Wall, and Rabbi Rabinovitch has twice previously turned away Christian delegations. In November 2007 he refused to let Austrian bishops near the wall after they would not remove or conceal their crosses, and in May 2008 he refused a request from a group of Irish bishops and prelates to visit the site. "They wanted to wear their crosses openly," Rabinovitch says. His rebuff of the Irish bishops was deemed "provocative" by one Church source who asked to remain anonymous.
Explaining the intensity of feeling over the quintessential symbol of Christianity, Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, a Jerusalem group promoting religious dialogue, says that there exists among ultra-Orthodox Jews "a certain allergy towards the cross." Asking the Pope to remove his cross, he says, is "part of the ongoing paranoia of Jewish history. But it doesn't show respect for the leader of another major religion."
Rabinovitch was in charge of the Western Wall during the visit of the late Pope John Paul II in 2000, when the pontiff prayed and twisted a written message into the cracks of the ancient stones, observing the Jewish belief that all prayers made at the Wall are answered. Rabbi Rabinovitch insists that John Paul II did not wear a visible crucifix during his visit to the site, but photographs taken during that visit clearly show the Polish Pope wearing his familiar golden cross as he touched the wall, head bowed.
Benedict, on his Jerusalem visit, also plans to tour the nearby Dome of the Rock, built on the site where Christianity, Judaism and Islam all believe that God prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son. For centuries, the shrine has been under Muslim control. A leading Muslim cleric, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, Chief Justice of the Shariah law courts in East Jerusalem, told TIME that cross or not, the Pope would be honored. "We would never object to his physical appearance. We don't believe in interfering in another religion's affairs."
It's possible that the fuss over the Pope's cross will blow over before Benedict arrives, since Rabinovitch's edict could be overruled by Israel's two chief rabbis, who are more politically attuned to the questions of the country's international image. Abunassar, the pontiff's media coordinator, says that the goal of Benedict's trip is "to promote peace between Jews, Muslims and Christians alike. " In these troubled times, that can be an uphill battle in the Holy Land.
—With reporting by Aaron J. Klein/Jerusalem
