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Pope’s Trip to Turkey and Appeal to Reason: Too Little Too Late?Pope’s Trip to Turkey and Appeal to Reason: Too Little Too Late? In his trip to Turkey, in November 2006, Pope Benedict the XVI used all his, and the Vatican’s accumulated diplomatic skills to calm down the spirits of Muslims, in this nominally “secular” country and all over the Islamic world, which he had excited earlier. Thus, the Pope diplomatically waived the Turkish flag upon arrival and declared his support of Turkey’s bit for membership in the EU, contrary to his earlier statements. He even placed a wreath on Ataturk’s tomb, in spite of the fact that this military man and his predecessors were mainly responsible for the thorough ethnic cleansing that swept Anatolia clean from its millennia old Christian communities (Armenian, Syrian, Greek). He also visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and prayed with the Mufti on his side, although such visit was not part of the official itinerary of his Holiness, and seemed to contradict his previous comments about the violent and unreasonable nature of Islam. For in an academic speech, which he gave in his Alma Matter, the Regensburg University, in Germany, he had quoted and commented on the remarks of a Byzantine Emperor, in such a way that many faithful Muslims had taken offense by his tactics and reacted violently. Specifically, the Pope informed his academic audience that the question of the relation between “faith and reason” was in his mind lately. Apparently this was the result of his reading of the edition, by Prof. Theodore Khoury, of a discussion [] which the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus had with an educated Muslim on the merits of Christianity and Islam, some time at the end of the 14th century (c. 1391). Commenting on “holy war” and the role of religion in it, allegedly the Emperor had asked: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Apparently, this statement infuriated many of the more than one billion faithful followers of Mohammed, for whom the Prophet is the last the best of all prophetic men. Of course, given what had been going on around Constantinople at that time of siege, and the continuous wars between Muslims and Christians, since the inception of Islam in the 7th century, the Byzantine Emperor’s comment was probably justified. He was about to lose his Empire and its capital, Constantinople, to the Muslims in a few years (in1453). So he had no illusions about the historic and warlike nature of Islam as a religion of violence rather than peace. Islam preaches peace among the faithful flock of Muslims, but it also sanctions war against the “infidels,” pagans as well as peoples of “the Book.” The Byzantine Emperors had painfully experienced the rapid spread of Islam in every direction, in the Middle East, in Egypt, in Northern Africa, and finally in Anatolia, in the Balkans and in South Europe, for seven centuries (7th to 14th centuries). Three of the original five Christian Patriarchates (in Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) had already fallen into the hands of the “infidels,” that is, Muslim militants. Within a few decades from the time of Emperor’s comment, even the Patriarchate of Constantinople (which was the real destination of the Pope's trip to Turkey) was to have the same fate. In this context, his Holiness has reason to fear that his fate may be next, as Pope and Patriarch or Bishop of Rome, if religious violence continues and things get completely out of hand with a possible and complete failure in the hopeless war in Iraq. So, Pope Benedict XVI remembered suddenly the forgotten “reason” of Hellenic philosophy and its role in Christian faith, strengthening it and spreading it with the word rather than the sword. But this may come as too little and too late, in the post 9/11 world of terror. As the revived religious fundamentalism spreads with increased violence, one can reasonably suspect that the voice of reason is bound to become weak and its light dim in the darkness of bigotry that may rule the world once again, as in Dark Ages in the past. Besides, the Pope of Rome as the head of Catholic Christianity, is probably not the best messenger to bring the “message of reason” and non-violence to the Muslims, whether they are militant and fanatic or even peaceful and thoughtful. The violent and fanatical history of the Catholic Church clearly shows that Popes, and Bishops generally, have not been models of rationality and non-violent behavior towards other faiths or even various other Christian sects. Consider what they did to Greco-Romans and to temples and statues of their tolerant and good gods. Think also of what they did to heretic sects, the Arians, Pelagians, Gnostics, Donatists, Monothelites, Monophysites, and so forth. But, as his Holiness knows very well, the great obstacle to reason and the real scandal to any reasonable communication and accommodation to the Muslims is the Doctrine of Trinity, the deification of the Son of God, and the Messiah claim for Jesus. How is he going to explain this great “mystery” to faithful Muslims rationally? They take their belief in one true God seriously. They, then, conclude reasonably that their one God cannot have a son or a daughter (since he has no wives, anyway). So they conclude, again “rationally,” that the Christians must be totally misguided and even “blasphemous,” as I have argued elsewhere. So, reason as applied to dogma would not help the situation here. On the other hand, reason as it may apply to science and philosophic speculation is a different issue. On this score, at least historically, the Muslim Arabs have much to show. For centuries, they were ahead of the Western European Christians, in mathematics and medicine, navigation and astronomy, etc. They even produced better commentaries on the Ancient Hellenic philosophers, than their Latin counterparts. But that is history. The Pope wants to look to the future and find there a space where “reason” and faith can meet and engage in meaningful discourse, so that the three “Laws” (as he called them: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) can learn to coexist peacefully. Is that possible? One should have serious and reasonable doubts about such possibility. This may be just wishful thinking of a Pope, who faces a serious problem: European Nihilism vs. Islamic Fundamentalism. Benedict XVI, like his predecessor John Paul II and the Church which they have led in the last thirty year or so, had apparently hoped that the collapse of the atheistic Communism in Eastern Europe would lead to a new era of revival of the Catholic faith. They probably even dreamed of a possible return to the Middle Ages, when Scholasticism and the Church ruled supreme and unchallenged in Christian Europe. Faith and reason seemed then to work together in serving the interests of Catholicism. However, their hopes were soon frustrated. Atheism, scientific skepticism, and moral nihilism are still prominent in the nominally Christian European Union, which remains apathetic, hyper-trophic, aging and most ominously sterile. In most European countries these days the birth rates are lower than the death rates, while the Churches remain mostly empty in Sundays, in the Catholic and even in Protestant countries. This is the exact opposite of what Catholic Leaders had hoped for, and what has actually happened in Islamic countries everywhere: serious revival of faith and sustained population growth. Pope Benedict XVI admires such marvelous outcomes generated “by true faith,” but, unfortunately for him, it in not his Catholic faith. So he faces a serious problem in this regard. Unlike the Muslims, European Christians do not live faithful lives. Moreover, given that every European country has significant Muslim minorities, which experience both these blessing of God, that is, revival of faith and high birth rate, the Europeans would be demographically overwhelmed by these minorities who retain their non-European identities in terms of religion, language, customs, and “militancy.” So, as the war on terrorism intensifies with the passing of time, it is reasonable to expect that more refugees form Muslim countries will seek refuge in the open, socially compassionate and faithfully weak EU. They may even take possession of countries that connect with the Mediterranean Sea, shared by Christian and Muslims over the centuries. Thus, the present Pope’s sudden “appeal to reason” may be just too little and too late to save him or his successors in the throne of Saint Peter from having the inglorious fate of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. They may become one day in the near future prisoners in the Vatican, as the others have been in the Phanar for centuries. We do not know the details of what transpired between Pope Benedict of Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and New Rome in their face to face meeting in the Turkish Istanbul. But it would not be surprising if they meditated philosophically also on the ironic turns of historical time and their possible common fate as Christian Leaders. On the other hand, from the point of view of the followers of the “last and best” Prophet, the situation is exactly as it was supposed to be. For the new revelation of the Holy Koran came to set the record straight, that is, to bring the Christians (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant) back to God, the one and only true God, Allah the Great. His command to all infidels was, as the Byzantine Emperor clearly understood it, “surrender or perish.” He refused to surrender and he perished. Reasonable or not, this militant command has served the Muslims historically very well. It made them, among other things, rulers of Christians for a whole millennium. Will they change their victorious tactics because a Byzantine scholar or a Catholic Pope may object to it? There is good reason to doubt that they will do so, and act accordingly.
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