Raw Deal
I’ve heard of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, but “The 9/11 of Pope Benedict XVI”? I’ll let Deal Hudson, of the Morley Institute for Chuch and Culture, explain:
Ever since he emerged smiling through the doors of St. Peter’s, as the Cardinals’ choice to lead the Church, Benedict XVI has successfully avoided reinforcing the stereotype of a tradition-bound conservative academic. He was not unaware, however, that the Catholic Left was ready to pounce on any miscue and hold it up to the world as proof of the disaster they predicted his papacy to be.
The Left didn’t wait long. No less a critic than John Cornwell, famous for his depiction of Pius XII as anti-Semitic, announced that the pope’s speech at the University of Regensburg has “set back relations with Islam several eras” (The Australian, September 18, 2006).
Cornwell fails to mention how the 9/11 attacks with reports of terrorist pilots plowing into American targets while praying to Allah put a stain on Islam that will take “several eras” to remove.
(snip)
The Muslim reaction to the Regensburg speech will only strengthen the Western world’s resolve to confront the threat of radical Islam, whether it is best called fascistic or jihadist. It will reinforce the resolve of Bush, Blair, and their supporters to stay the course in the Iraq war and keep the pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program.
Read the rest here.
What can one say about Deal Hudson, the advisor to the Bush White House?
Deal should return to the proper place for him, under his rock
“The Muslim reaction to the Regensburg speech will only strengthen the Western world’s resolve to confront the threat of radical Islam, whether it is best called fascistic or jihadist.”
This is especially true of those either have not read the Pope’s speech or are either unable or unwilling to understand what it plainly says. “They have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear.”
Hudson speaks of the “hiding” of “moderate muslims” in short, saying that we don’t hear much from them.
The same could be said about “less reactionary” pro-lifers. We hear about those people who bomb abortion clinics, who participate in road blockades, who call women baby killers as they head towards clinics. But do we ever hear about the herioic people who work their behinds off in pregnancy crisis centers? I’d challenge any Catholic to even name the address of a pregnancy crisis center in their parish boundaries.
The truth is that extremists are newsworthy. And they are newsworthy because they are nuts. They “steal the headlines” from the story that should be told and there isn’t much you can do about that. Let’s face it…their nuttiness is, in fact, a story.
I also find it interesting that the use of force is selective here.
“Force” is not merely a coercive physical threat or act but it also takes on a verbal and a political nature as well. Some on the Catholic right (and unfortunately some on the left as well) have been spreading rhetoric by force for some time…albeit a less tangible form and it certainly put nobody in any physical danger.
A bully pulpit, however, inflicts more harm than one in which reason–as our dear Pope elequently stated, takes center stage. Reason and debate sports a connotation of heated and yet charitable engagement with issues. And this has always had a place in the church. These days though, those engaged in the debate on both sides at times result to calling someone “unorthodox” and thus, dismissing them out of turn. The greatest theological minds of ancient times and in the not so distant past would never have done that. Rather they sought to keep all those voices in a dynamic tension.
I believe our pope wishes to do the same and he has stated this. I hope we see more of that kind of thinking as this papacy continues.