Did he contradict himself? YES.

If readers think that I’m overstating my case that the pope has contradicted himself or that I am seeing a contradiction that is not even there, here again is what he said on Wednesday, September 20 at St. Peter’s Square:

I wanted to extend an invitation to a dialogue of Christian faith with the modern world and to a dialogue of all cultures and religions. I hope that on different occasions during my visit – for instance, in Munich when I stressed how important it is to respect that which is sacred to others – my profound respect for the great religions, and in particular for the Moslems, who “adore the one God” and with whom we are engaged in “defending and promoting together, for all men, social justice, moral values, peace and freedom” (Nostra Aetate, 3) was clearly apparent.

Quoting Nostra Aetate (which I have previously discussed here), he’s saying that Muslims—not just some Muslims, but “the” Muslims—are engaged with Christians in “defending and promoting together, for all men, social justice, moral values, peace and freedom.” Not only is this a complete, total lie, and an extremely dangerous lie because it puts non-Muslims to sleep about the reality of Islam, but it also is a complete, total contradiction from what he said at Regensburg on September 12:

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats…. To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….”

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. … for the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality….

In this passage the pope, drawing on Manuel II, is not merely saying that violence in general is incompatible with the nature of God. Though the word Islam doesn’t appear in the passage, from the whole context we know he is saying that Islam in its sacred core calls for the violence that is incompatible with the nature of God. In the second paragraph he does refer specifically to the god of Islam who is utterly other, arbitrary, made of pure will, and thus (connecting back to the first paragraph) also violent. (See my exposition of the paragraph here.) So he is saying that the god of Islam is not compatible with the true God. And he is saying that Islam is a religion of violence against non-Muslims. But in his September 20 quotation of Nostra Aetate, he says that Muslims adore the One God and work with Christians to advance the general good of the human race.

Let me repeat that.

In Regensburg he said the god of Islam is a god of will, violence, and forced conversions. But at St. Peter’s Square he said that Muslims “adore the One God.”

In Regensburg he said that implicit at the core of Islam is war against non-Muslims. But at St. Peter’s Square he said that “the Muslims” are engaged in promoting “social justice, moral values, peace and freedom … for all men.”

I know there are a lot of people who want to deny that the pope contradicted himself, just as there are a lot of people who denied that his “evil and inhuman” quotation was at all an aggressive act or fighting words. But the truth is plain to see.

For anyone who built a structure of thought based on the pope’s Regensburg address (as I did), his comments at St. Peter’s Square have cut the ground from under one’s feet and the structure has come tumbling down. That doesn’t mean the thoughts themselves are discredited, but it destroys the expectation that there was a new shared direction being established here for the Christian West.

A man in a high position of leadership and respect who carefully enunciates a position on one of the most important issues in the world,—which naturally causes others to study what he has said and to build on it—and then, as the pope has done, totally reverses himself and undercuts his previous statement, is a man who is not to be trusted.

Of course, it would be easy not to feel betrayed by Benedict’s September 20 statement, if you had not thought seriously about—and taken seriously—his September 12 statement.

* * *

In defense of Benedict it could be said that he was not undercutting his own previous remarks, but was just quoting Nostra Aetate, the Church’s 1965 Declaration on the relation of the Church to Judaism and Islam. (See Wikipedia article.) But that begs the question, why did he quote Nostra Aetate on this occasion? After all, he didn’t quote it on September 12 in Regensburg. The obvious implication of the Regensburg address was that he was moving away from and downplaying the pro-Muslim part of Nostra Aetate. That was certainly the expectation the address created. For anyone who believed that the pope was fully intending to keep enforcing or invoking Nostra Aetate, the Regensburg address would have appeared as words without meaning and effect. And, as it turns out, maybe they were right, because by reintroducing the pro-Muslim part of Nostra Aetate on the 20th (which nobody was requiring him to do, he chose to do it), he destroyed the anti-Muslim part of his Regensburg address. So why did he deliver the Regensburg address in the first place? Maybe Ratzinger is a politician. Like Bush, he has persuaded lots and lots of conservatives that he has taken a hard line on Islam, when in fact he has not.

- end of initial entry -

Ben writes:

“Maybe Ratzinger is a politician.”

LOL. Yeah, just call him Pope Bush II. Get your base all excited about a use of words [e.g. “Islamic Fascism”] only to stop using them the next day, even going so far to make statements that contradict what you said the previous day while your followers still psychologically believe you’re standing up for what you first said.

I intend no offense to Catholics, I respect the Catholic Church greatly for its history, for its defense of Christianity, for creating a man like Charles Martel and other great warriors for Christianity, and all the missionaries they sent out Christianizing Europe, and I know they do not like to see their pope made fun of. But having said that, it is ridiculous to make a wonderful statement like he did that could have forced the West into this debate and then do a 180 like this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 21, 2006 12:24 PM | Send