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The Vatican’s ambiguous denials that the pope approved the admission of Turkey to the EU
Readers will remember VFR’s dismay at Pope Benedict’s dhimmi-like visit to Turkey last November and his statements there, most importantly his widely reported reversal of his previous opposition to Turkish membership in the European Union. However, an article posted at the Chiesa website on January 5 claims that the world media misrepresented the pope. The headline reads:
Exercises in Disinformation: The Pope According to the Leading NewspapersIn the article, Anton Smitsendonk, former Dutch ambassador to China, says that Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan played a dirty trick when, after meeting briefly with the pope in the airport on his arrival in Turkey, he came out of the meeting and told the reporters that the pope favors Turkish admission, which the media then dutifully reported creating a worldwise sensation. In an introduction to Smitsendonk’s article, Sandro Magister quotes statements by high Vatican officials which purport to say that the Vatican and the pope had not endorsed Turkish admission. Unfortunately, I find the Vatican statements “political” in the negative sense of that word and not believable. First is the statement by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s foreign minister, speaking to “Avvenire” on November 26, 2006, that is, two days before the pope’s meeting with Erdogan, in an interview with Gianni Cardinale:
It is not the case that the Holy See has expressed an “official” position on the subject [of Turkey’s entrance into the European Union]. Obviously, it follows the question with great interest, and this again highlights the fact that the longstanding debate over Turkey’s admission into the Union and the positions for or against this show the great relevance of what is at stake. Of course, the Holy See maintains that, in the case of admission, the country must comply with all of the political criteria established by the Copenhagen Summit in 2002, and more specifically in terms of religious freedom, with the recommendations contained in the July 23, 2006 Council Decision on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the Accession Partnership with Turkey.Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, said after the November 28, 2006 meeting between Benedict XVI and Erdogan:
The Holy See has neither the power nor the specific task of intervening on the precise point of Turkey’s entry in the European Union. It is not its responsibility. However, it regards positively and encourages the path of dialogue and rapprochement to Europe in virtue of common values and principles. In this connection, the pope expressed his appreciation for the initiative of the Alliance of Civilizations promoted by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.If anything, Lombardi’s statement sounds as if the Vatican views favorably the moves toward membership: “However, it regards positively and encourages the path of dialogue and rapprochement to Europe in virtue of common values and principles.” Given the fact that the world was under the impression that the pope had told the Turkish PM that he supported Turkish EU membership, would anyone regard Lombadi’s statement as a clear sign that the pope had not done so? But now let’s look again at one of the contemporary news reports at the time of the pope’s Turkey visit, from the The Observer, as quoted by Smitsendonk:
In an apparent reversal of his previous stance, Pope Benedict XVI has reportedly said he supports Turkey joining the EU. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Catholic Church leader told him during a 20-minute conversation at the outset of the pontiff’s four-day trip to the mainly Muslim secular country “we are not political but we wish for Turkey to join the EU.”My question is: did Lombardi say clearly that it was not true that the pope had said this to Erdogan? And the answer is No. Nor is Mamberti’s statement, made before the visit, reassuring, but in fact backs up the view that the Vatican was open to Turkish admission. Further, let’s suppose for a moment the pope did say to Erdogan: “We are not political but we wish for Turkey to join the EU.” Is there anything in Lombardi’s statement that clearly refutes that? No. So it’s entirely possible the pope did say it. Here again is Mamberti:
It is not the case that the Holy See has expressed an “official” position on the subject [of Turkey’s entrance into the European Union.But the statement, made before the visit, that the Holy See had not expressed an official position on Turkey is in fact entirely in conformity with what Erdogan reported the pope said at the time of the visit: “We are not political but we wish for Turkey to join the EU.” [My emphasis.] Also, Smitsendonk and Magister definitively claim that that the pope didn’t say it and that the media were reporting as true something that was false. But unless I missed something, neither Magister nor Smitsendonk establish anywhere in this article that the reports were false. So I am extremely unimpressed by this. The statements by Sandro Magister, the editor of Chiesa, and Smitsendonk that the media were all reporting a false story makes me distrust the Vatican and its spokesmen on this. Lombardi was not acting like a person about whom a very important and damaging false statement was made and who wants to clear it up. He was acting in a murky way. Imagine that you were a national leader visiting Turkey and the Turkish prime minister pulled off the kind of dirty trick that Smitsendonk accuses him of doing to the pope, attributing to you the opposite of your actual views. Wouldn’t you, whether personally or through your government, issue the clearest, most unambiguous statement that the statement attributed to you was not true? But the Vatican did not do this. Therefore the Vatican’s denials are not believable.
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