Abandoned Altars

Any doubts about what kind of Supreme Pontiff Josef Ratzinger would become should be settled with the dust from his recent challenge.

Seems there’s a new pope in town. One with quite as geopolitical an agenda as the late John Paul II, but with a different emphasis. The evil empire that haunted and probably even tried to assassinate the “Slavic Pope” (as Malachi Martin liked to call him) did not outlive him. But his successor, this German Pope, has found that more ancient foes have risen once again in the meantime.

And Benedict XVI is apparently not afraid of a showdown. Indirectly, that is, and with the kind of cunning of which John Paul (or Innocent III) for that matter, would be proud.

It seemed simple enough. At the very time of the year that John Paul would often go up to Assisi for an ecumenical group hug and “Kumbaya” sing-along with the heathen, Benny does something different.

He goes back to his old school to deliver a lecture to his fellow theologian homeboys. There he happens to quote a Byzantine emperor who once asked a Muslim scholar:

“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.”

One has to wonder at the sheer chutzpah of the Roman Pope and former head of the modern Inquisition, to actually suggest with a straight face that using violence to create converts is wrong!

But that’s not all. His statement — easily dismissable as a scholarly chat and just a quote that doesn’t express his private views — goes beyond that.

It also implies that Mohammed stole all the good things in his teaching from previous teachers. A few paragraphs on, however, he suggests something even worse, that fortunately has not been caught by the outraged Muslims, as far I know. It is a point he obviously wanted to make and at the same time distance himself as far as possible from.

This time he again quotes a scholar who quotes another scholar who quotes a Muslim scholar who said that “God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry.”

Now that sounds just a little to me that he’s saying that to Muslims God could be a crazy liar and a devil!

Now, sure, Ratzinger was speaking to his old home crowd, not to the world from St. Peter’s. But the man is not stupid, and neither are his advisors. They well knew, as someone said, that what he was doing was like “throwing a hand grenade into a barrel of gunpowder”.

I believe the manner it was done was to present the pope in the most reasonable light and show the Muslims as fanatics who by their reaction, nicely proved his point. But the reason it was done is a very old reason indeed.

It turns out that the Vatican opposes Turkey’s entry into the European Union. The pope wants it to remain a club of Christian (or formerly Christian) states. For the area these states control was once called “Christendom” — the realm of Christ — and who other than the Vicar of Christ could ever be its leader?

After all, the papacy has naturally led the European resistance to Islam since that supposedly peaceable faith stormed into France in the eighth century. By speaking out so, Benedict reassures the nervous Christians of Europe and reassumes the papal role (there being no emperor around) of defender of the faith.

This showdown is a high-stakes gamble, indeed. The world may indeed be trembling on the edge of a “war of civilizations” that could end in utter ruination. Let us hope and pray that Benedict is never given to repeat the words of another pope, Urban II, who a thousand years ago launched the First Crusade:

“… Let the deeds of your ancestors encourage you and incite your minds to manly achievements: - the greatness of King Charlemagne, and of his son Louis, and of your other monarchs, who have destroyed the kingdoms of the Turks and have extended the sway of Church over lands previously possessed by the pagan. Let the holy sepulcher of our Lord and Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially arouse you, and the holy places which are now treated, with ignominy and irreverently polluted with the filth of the unclean.”

To which the crowd roared, “Deus vult!” – “God wills it!”

We may find out all too soon if Benedict was right when he quoted: “God is not pleased by blood”. And just whose blood gives Him the most pleasure.