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Did Fessio really retract his statement?
Daniel Pipes too eagerly seizes on Fr. Joseph Fessio’s “retraction” of his report that Pope Benedict had told a private seminar last summer that Islam can’t be re-interpreted or reformed:
This is major news, especially that part where Fr Fessio writes “Of course the Koran can be and has been interpreted and applied.” It points to the pope’s views being like mine, namely, that Islam can change.Let’s leave aside the question of why Islam needs to “change” at all, given Pipes’s insistence that “Traditional Islam seeks to teach human beings how to live in accord with God’s will,” and that it’s only modern, militant Islam that “aspires to create a new order.” Let’s also leave aside the point that of course Islam can be interpreted and applied—it has been interpreted and applied for the last 1,400 years to require jihad against all unbelievers until they convert, accept the jizya tax, or are killed—if it could be interpreted and applied in some other way, wouldn’t that have happened by now? The point I want to make here it is that it not at all clear that Fessio retracted his initial characterization of the pope’s views, viz: God has given His word to Mohammed, but it’s an eternal word. It’s not Mohammed’s word. It’s there for eternity the way it is. There’s no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism’s completely different, that God has worked through His creatures.In his letter to the Washington Times, Fessio tries to say that this was not what the Pope said:
I made a serious error in precision when I said that the Koran “cannot be adapted or applied” and that there is “no possibility of adapting or interpreting it.” This is certainly not what the Holy Father said.But if this is the case, why doesn’t Fessio tell us what the pope actually did say? He continues:
I think I paraphrased the Holy Father with general accuracy, but it was an indiscretion for me to mention what he said at all, and my impromptu paraphrase in another language should not be used for a careful exegesis of the mind of the Holy Father.But if he “paraphrased” the pope with “general accuracy,” then what precisely is he retracting, and why does he need to retract anything? Fr. Fessio is thus using weasel words, saying (1) that it was an indiscretion to quote the pope, and (2) that his impromptu paraphrase should not be used for a careful exegesis of the mind of the Holy Father. While I agree with the latter point, the fact remains that Fessio does not take back his paraphrase of the pope as having said, “There’s no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it.” Rather, he tells us that this is a “misinterpretation.” But the meaning of that comment is unclear. If it was a wrong interpretation of what the pope said, what, then, is the correct interpretation? To sum up, Fessio is saying, “The pope said X,” but he’s adding, “I misinterpreted the pope when I said, ‘The pope said X.’ Fessio is evidently seeking to soften the impact of his admittedly indiscrete report of the pope’s private statement, without actually retracting it. He has not clearly established that the pope did not say or mean what Fessio initially reported the pope as saying. He has thrown the matter into a muddle. Which, by the way, may explain why Pipes is so enthusiastic about Fessio’s comments: Fessio’s revised description of the pope’s views is now almost as contradictory and incoherent as Pipes’s ever-shifting descriptions of Islam.
In any case, as I’ve written, these uncertainties only serve to underscore the pope’s duty to speak out publicly on this vitally important matter. When it comes to explaining the nature of a world-conquering religion, many millions of whose followers Europe has thoughtlessly admitted into its bosom, informal comments made to a private seminar are not sufficient. Email entry |