"In Regensburg, the pope offered as terrain for dialogue between Christians and Muslims 'acting according to reason.' But the Islamic world has attacked him, distorting his thought, confirming by this that the rejection of reason brings intolerance and violence along with it." Thus writes Sandro Magister, at www.chiesa (Roma, September 18 2006). Read more in his post entitled, "Islam’s Unreasonable War Against Benedict XVI."Christopher writes for the RatzingerFanClub discussion group:
"I thought Pope Benedict's address at Regensburg University] itself is phenomenal. Unfortunately, due to the media's cherry-picking of the most controversial remarks on Islam (which was hardly the focus) and the predictable righteous indignation of the self-proclaimed "religion of peace" who are now, in some cases, burning the Pope in effigy, firebombing churches, and calling for the Holy Father's death, the real "meat" of the lecture is being practically ignored. While I attempt a summary of it in my blog-post, I strongly encourage everybody to read the text in full. You can find it posted on the Vatican website."Christopher has also established a 'Benedict Blog' for exclusive coverage of the Holy Father. On his visit to Germany, he has three recent posts -- an overview on his trip to Bavaria, on the Regensberg address, and the controversy over his remarks on Islam. The Regensberg University itself has a great page devoted to the Holy Father's teaching years there and subsequent visitations. Fr. James V. Schall, on Ignatius Press' website writes:
But with this lecture we are in heady academic surroundings. All is genteel. All is formal. All is, yes, "intellectual." But it is here where the real battles lie hidden. What we see in Regensburg are, after Deus Caritas Est, the second shots of the new pope at the heart of what is wrong in our world and its mind. These "shots," however, are designed to do what all good intellectual battle does, namely, to make it possible for us to see again what is true and to live it.Christopher writes: "Of course the real story now is if and when the Pope will submit in obedience and render an apology to Islam. It seems that on the subject of Mohammad, there is no permitted no critical discussion on this topic (just as Islamic scholars attempting an investigation into the 'origins' of the Qu'Ran have a tendency to get exiled from their countries and are subject to death threats [What is the Quran?])."
The Regensburg Address, I suspect, will go down as one of those seminal and incisive analyses that tell us who we are and where we are. It will remind us of what we are by teaching us again to think about the God that the skeptics, the dons, the theological faculties, including Muslim faculties, have too often obscured for us. Civilization depends also on thinking rightly about God and man -- all civilization, not just European or Muslim. Such is the reach of this lecture.
See Christopher's posts at Against the Grain:[Hat tip to Christopher]
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