Benedict XVI and Islam: Where do they stand?
Date: November 30, 2006
Time: 2:20pm est

Since last September at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict has been trying to jumpstart a dialogue on two fronts: dialogue with Islam, but also dialogue with the largely secularized, anti-religious West. And what we have heard from him in Turkey this week is in lockstep with what he said then. He reiterated his esteem for Muslims, and his insistence that Islam and Christianity have a common ground in pointing "to the truth of the sacred character and dignity of the person." Now as then, he is saying that the secularized West restricts and impoverishes the notion of reason to the exclusion of religion, and that some extremist forms of religion (militant Islam) exalt religion to the exclusion of reason.

What about Turkey's entry into the EU?

Checking with my sources over in the Vatican and Turkey, I find there is no clear answer as to what exactly the Holy Father told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan in their interview. It was broadly interpreted as an expression of support on the part of the Holy Father for Turkey's entry into the European Union-in apparent contrast with his previous opposition to the idea. In an attempt to clarify the matter, the official Vatican spokesman failed to articulate what exactly the Pope had said. Given everything I have read and heard, I think we can safely surmise the following. The Holy Father seems to have expressed favor for the exploration of Turkey's entry into the EU. There was an expression of openness to this on the part of the Holy See, but clearly understood that inclusion in the EU means compliance with EU requirements (including a commitment to honor certain values, such as respect for women and religious liberty.) What was clear from the spokesman's statement was that the Vatican will not engage in politicking one way or the other for Turkey's inclusion or exclusion.

We might want to go a step further, however, and surmise that Pope Benedict now sees Turkey's entry into the EU as favorable from a practical or even tactical standpoint. If the Pope is less than sanguine about the eventual outcome of Europe's coming collision with Islam, he might be thinking of Turkey as a Muslim buffer State of sorts. In fact, he might even be looking on Turkey as a kind of cultural laboratory of the kind of Islamic-western dialogue the Pope thinks can save us from a future of violence and bloodshed. This is my read of his comments to reporters on Tuesday flying to Ankara as reported by the Zenit News Agency. He said that such a dialogue "between European reason and Muslim tradition is inscribed in the very existence of modern Turkey." And he continued:

We, Europeans, must rethink our secular reasoning, which excludes the religious dimension from public life and leads to a dead end. Turkey, for its part, beginning from its history must think with Europeans how to reconstruct for the future the nexus between secularism and tradition, between open and tolerant reason, which has as its fundamental element freedom, and those essential values of religion that give content to freedom.

At one point it appears he also noted that Turkey is a natural bridge between Muslim Middle East and Europe. Perhaps he sees Turkey as an ideological bridge as well, one that just might hold out some hope for bridging the gap between western reason excised of religion and Muslim religion excised of reason.

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