APOSTOLIC VOYAGE TO TURKEY

Top Turkish religious official wants to move on from Pope row

Reuters
Published: 19/11/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

Berlin: Turkey's top religious official says he wants to move on from Pope Benedict's recent controversial remarks about Islam, and will not raise the subject himself when the Pontiff visits Turkey this month.

"I would like to look forward," Ali Bardakoglu was quoted as saying in advance extracts from an interview appearing in tomorrow's news weekly Der Spiegel. "If the Pope does not mention it himself then I will not bring it up."

The Pope has repeatedly expressed regret for the offence caused to many Muslims by a September 12 speech in which he quoted a 14th century religious text. He said the views expressed in it were not his own, but has stopped short of a full apology.

Bardakoglu, who is due to meet the Pope when he visits Turkey from November 28 to December 1, said Islam was open to criticism.

"We are ready for an intellectual discussion about the relationship between belief and reason, between religion and violence," Bardakoglu was quoted as saying. "Islam and rationality belong together."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/11/2006 16.27]

ANKARA, Turkey, Nov. 19 (AP) - The spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians cautioned Turks in an interview published Sunday against creating potential "unpleasant incidents" during Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming trip to Turkey.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said in an interview published in the Sabah newspaper Sunday that the pope's Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 trip was a great opportunity for Turkey, and he would tell the pontiff that the country belonged in the European Union, which Ankara has long sought to join.

The pope's visit to Turkey was born out of Benedict's desire to meet Bartholomew, who has his headquarters in Istanbul, once ancient Constantinople. The pontiff has been trying to foster better relations between the Orthodox and Catholics, and will meet privately with Bartholomew on Nov. 29.

Authorities in Turkey — a Muslim country — have said they expect protests against the pope, who angered Muslims by a speech he made in September in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor's remarks about Islam and violence.

Benedict has since expressed regret that the remarks caused offense and has stressed they did not reflect his personal opinion. He has also expressed esteem for Islam.

Bartholomew cautioned that if protests turn violent, they could cause problems for Turkey ahead of a critical EU summit in mid-December, where the EU leaders will judge Ankara's progress for membership.

"The pope has a say in all Catholic countries," Bartholomew told Sabah. "If there are psychologically unpleasant incidents, then this would be an issue in Brussels in December. Even if not at the official level, they would talk about it between themselves."

Bartholomew, however, said he would tell the pontiff that "it is not wrong for Turkey to become a member of the EU as a Muslim country because it would bring mutual richness."

"The EU should not remain as a Christian club," the daily Sabah quoted Bartholomew as saying.

During his trip, Benedict will also meet with Turkey's president and the deputy premier, as well as the head of the country's religious affairs, a top Islamic cleric.
================================================================

As if it wasn't problematic enough for the Holy Father to express himself when he is Turkey about his host country's bid to join the European Union, here comes Bartholomew I who is, in effect, putting public pressure on him to declare himself in favor of Turkey's entry into the EU.

Of course, it would be no 'problem' at all if Benedict XVI himself has 'reconsidered' Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's objection to having Turkey in the EU. Even if the reason Cardinal Ratzinger had continues to be valid- Turkey is now and has been for six centuries a Muslim nation; it does not share Europe's Christian tradition.

What could Benedict XVI realistically say?
"Turkey has applied for membership, and if it satisfies the Union's requirements, then it deserves to be a member. (My personal opinion is not a consideration)." ?????

Or, would he add -
"Personally, I have thought about it, and I have changed my mind because....."????? [if indeed, his personal opinion has changed]....

What he will say about this issue and how he will say it, remain the suspenseful aspect of this trip (security considerations apart) for most of us.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/11/2006 16.53]

Pope to make 1st visit
to Muslim nation
By BRIAN MURPHY
AP Religion Writer


ATHENS, Greece, Nov. 30 (AP) - When Pope Benedict XVI goes to Turkey this month for his first papal visit to a Muslim nation, he will in effect be making two distinct journeys.

The global spotlight will be on what efforts he makes to win back the respect of Muslims angered by his remarks on religious violence and the Prophet Muhammad. The other will be a pilgrimage to one of Christianity's last toeholds in Turkey.

Together they represent a test of Benedict's diplomatic finesse as he tries to calm Muslim ire while being pressed to make a forceful statement in defense of the rights of Christian minorities in Muslim lands.

The scheduled Nov. 29 meeting in Istanbul between the pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, will be the latest display of fellowship between the two ancient branches of Christianity and reinforce the dream of ending their nearly 1,000-year estrangement.

No breakthrough is expected at Bartholomew's walled compound in Istanbul, formerly the Christian Byzantine capital Constantinople before falling to Muslim armies in 1453.

Instead, the visit may highlight the weak links in efforts to heal the East-West divide in Christianity, which was sealed in 1054 after centuries of feuds over papal authority and differences in the liturgy.

Bartholomew is called the "first among equals" among the Orthodox leaders, but he wields little real power over the world's more than 250 million Orthodox. That power rests with the patriarchs of the various self-governing churches, the largest of which is the Russian Orthodox Church of Patriarch Alexy II, who rebuffed overtures by the late Pope John Paul II for a groundbreaking trip to Moscow.

Alexy is at the center of one of the main Orthodox complaints: the growth of Eastern Rite churches, which follow many Orthodox rites but are under the Vatican's jurisdiction. Orthodox fear the churches are expanding Vatican influence and luring away followers in Ukraine and other traditional Orthodox regions. The Vatican denies it is trying to poach Orthodox believers.

Benedict has had a better reception than John Paul among Orthodox leaders because of his affinity for the traditions of early Christianity and his respected theological scholarship. Alexy has suggested he might consider meeting Benedict, perhaps in a neutral third country, if there is progress on the Eastern Rite quarrels and other issues.

On Friday at the Vatican, Benedict said the four-day Turkey trip beginning Nov. 28 "will be a further sign of consideration for the Orthodox churches and will act as a stimulus to quicken the steps toward re-establishing full communion."

His remarks did not address the furor stoked by his Sept. 12 speech, in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor's description of Islam as a religion spread by the sword. But the Turkish officials he will meet include the head of religious affairs, Ali Bardakoglu, a top Islamic cleric who has said the pope's words threatened world peace.

On the Orthodox front, Benedict acknowledged, much still needs to be done.

The Orthodox leadership, too, is facing internal struggles over how to deal with a lopsided equation: Their fragmented structure versus the central authority that holds spiritual sway over 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

"The issue of papal primacy remains a very difficult one for the Orthodox," said the Rev. Igor Yevgeniyevich Vyzhanov, a Russian church spokesman. "This meeting with the pope should be just seen in terms of bilateral relationship between the Vatican and the ecumenical patriarchate. It cannot be seen as talks between the pope and the entire Orthodox world."

But Bartholomew's struggles still resonate far beyond his tiny enclave in Istanbul.

His pleas for minority rights carry particular sensitivity in Turkey, whose bid for European Union membership hinges on expanding religious and cultural freedoms.

In early November, Turkey's parliament passed a law allowing properties confiscated in the 1970s by the state to be returned to Christian and Jewish minority foundations. The decision, however, did not specifically address Orthodox demands to reopen a theological school shuttered 21 years ago.

"This trip could reinforce what many Orthodox already feel — that Pope Benedict is interested in making a real effort at healing the differences," said Thomas FitzGerald, dean at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass.

There have been some small but notable steps since May 2005, when Benedict declared a "fundamental commitment" to promote dialogue with the Orthodox.

In September, 60 top-level envoys gathered in Belgrade, Serbia, to restart Vatican-Orthodox talks that broke off six years ago over issues including papal authority and Eastern Rite churches. Separate meetings have continued between American Catholic and Orthodox representatives.

The influential head of the Greek Orthodox church, Archbishop Christodoulos, is scheduled to visit the Vatican on Dec. 14.

Even the timing of Benedict's trip is built around Orthodox sensibilities. His time with Bartholomew coincides with the feast day of the apostle-martyr St. Andrew, who traveled through Asia Minor and the Balkans and who, tradition says, ordained the first bishop of what would become Constantinople.

Somewhere in cyberspace is a long post that I put in at 1:10 11/21/06, according to the Forum clock. It is now 2 hours later and I still do not know what happened to it, despite the fact that as soon as I clicked RISPONDI and got out, it registered on our Fans Speaking English board and still is - but the post itself is nowhere to be found.


I re-posted the Time cover article on the Pope's visit to Turkey that benefan had posted in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT just 'for the record' on this thread - so we have the major stories on the trip 'compiled' here - but also to interpose my comments, because given that the article was written by two main co-writers and local correspondents credited with helping, that may have accounted for a certain unevenness. And there were just quite a few assertions that I felt should be taken issue with.

I will not rush reconstructing that because it may yet turn up, but I will add two sidebars from the same issue - Is it the third time in 19 months that TIME places Benedict XVI on its cover?

I just wish the cover designer had been more creative this time - and not have reduced the figure of the Pope(with his back to the camera, no less!) to something like a literal 'sidebar' to Islam.

The Papal figure on the cover is literally generic for 'the Pope', any Pope - when the point is that it is BENEDICT personally who is the protagonist in this challenge to Islan, in the same way that JOHN PAUL personally was the protagonist in the fight against Communism.

TIME solicits Richard John Neuhaus and the Muslim author Tariq Ramadan to give their opinion on 'what the Pope gets right' and 'where he's still in the dark', respectively....
================================================================

What the Pope Gets Right ...
By decrying the use of violence in the name of God,
Benedict is challenging Muslims to confront hard truths
By RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS


Benedict XVI's journey to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, is laden with the wounds of history both ancient and painfully contemporary.

The Pope's controversial Sept. 12 lecture in Regensburg, Germany, quoted a 14th century exchange between a Byzantine Christian Emperor and a Muslim intellectual in which the Emperor made some distinctly uncomplimentary observations about Islam.

The Pope admitted that the Emperor's statement was brusque. But his point in reaching so far back into history was to demonstrate that problems between the Christian West and Islam long precede today's "war on terrorism."

Although the West, and most notably Europe, may be less Christian today, Muslims still view it as the Christian West. For a thousand years, from the days of Muhammad in the 7th century, Islam enjoyed a run of triumphant conquest, interrupted only momentarily by the Christian Crusades. The time of conquest lasted until the failed siege of Vienna in 1683.

After Vienna, and most dramatically under 19th and 20th century Western colonialism, Islam was sidelined from history - one of the main sources of the rage and resentment of today's jihadists.

The jihadists believe their time of resumed conquest has come. Through terrorism and the mass immigration of Muslims in Europe, the jihadists are pressing for the reversal of the military outcome of 1683.

This is the context in which Benedict attempted to make a larger point at Regensburg. He acknowledged that Christians have sometimes had a problem, and he suggested that Muslims still have a problem, in understanding the relationship between faith and coercion. Violence, said the Pope, is the enemy of reason. Violence has no place in the advancing of religion. To act against reason is to act against the nature of God.

The violent responses to the Pope's speech reflect the belief of jihadist groups, such as al-Qaeda, that their religion mandates the use of any means necessary, including suicide bombers and the mass killing of civilians, to bring about the world's submission to Islam.

In an Oct. 12 "Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI," 38 distinguished Islamic religious authorities, including Grand Muftis in Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Kosovo, Bosnia and Uzbekistan, wrote that "jihad ... means struggle, and specifically struggle in the way of God. This struggle may take many forms, including the use of force."

The signers delicately criticized some acts of Muslim terrorism, such as the killing of a nun in Somalia, but failed to address the relationship between religion and politics in Islam, or whether the "maintenance of sovereignty" includes, as radical jihadists claim, the violent reconquest of Western lands that were once Muslim. Whether out of conviction or fear of being targeted by terrorists, the 38 did not frontally reject the linkage between violence and the advance of Islam.

Nonetheless, the open letter was framed in respectful terms and was welcomed at the Vatican. It is noteworthy, however, that the Pope has not retreated from his challenge to Islam.

Moreover, under his leadership, the Vatican has taken a much stronger line in insisting on "reciprocity" in relations with Islam. Mosques proliferate throughout cities in the West, while any expression of non-Islamic religion is strictly forbidden in many Muslim countries.

In the Vatican and elsewhere, the feeling has been growing that the way of tolerance, dialogue and multicultural sensitivity can no longer be a one-way street. In fact, that shift predates Benedict's papacy.

In his 1994 book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II said complimentary things about the piety of Muslims. But John Paul concluded his discussion of Islam with this: "For [these reasons] not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity."

The theology has to do with the relationship between faith and reason, the anthropology with the dignity of the human person that requires a free and uncoerced response to truth, including religious truth.

God ("Allah" in Arabic), Benedict contends, should be viewed not as an arbitrary ruler who issues capricious commands but as the Divine Reason that human beings, through reason and freedom, are invited to share.

Speaking for the Catholic Church, which includes over half of the more than 2 billion Christians in the world, Benedict says that, in matters of religion, violence is the enemy of reason, and to act against reason is to act against God. Challenging the leaders of the more than 1 billion Muslims in the world, he asks them to join in that affirmation.

Father Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things, a monthly magazine on religion, culture and public life
===============================================================

... And Where He's Still in the Dark
Benedict's definition of what it means to be European
ignores the positive contributions of Islam
By TARIQ RAMADAN

Since delivering the speech in which he quoted a 14th century Emperor who said the Prophet of Islam had given nothing positive to humanity and had commanded followers to use violence to spread their faith, Pope Benedict XVI has been subjected to bitter Muslim reaction around the world.

Benedict has responded by saying he regretted the consequences of his misunderstood words, but he did not retract his statement - perhaps rightly so. After all, he had simply cited an ancient Emperor. It is Benedict's right to exercise his critical opinion without being expected to apologize for it -whether he's an ordinary Roman Catholic or the Pope.

But that doesn't mean he was right. Muslim attention has focused mainly on the lecture's association between violence and Islam, but the most important and disputable aspect of it was Benedict's reflection on what it means to be European.

In his speech at Regensburg, the Pope attempted to set out a European identity that is Christian by faith and Greek by philosophical reason. But Benedict's speech implicitly suggested that he believes that Islam has no such relationship with reason - and thus is excluded from being European.

Several years ago, the Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, set forth his opposition to the integration of Turkey into Europe in similar terms. Muslim Turkey has never been, and never will be, able to claim an authentically European culture, he contended. It is another thing; it is the Other.

As I have written before, this profoundly European Pope is inviting the people of his continent to become aware of the central, inescapable character of Christianity within their identity, or risk losing it. That may be a legitimate goal, but Benedict's narrow definition of European identity is deeply troubling and potentially dangerous.

This is what Muslims must respond to: the tendency of Westerners to ignore the critical role that Muslims played in the development of Western thought. Those who "forget" the decisive contributions of rationalist Muslim thinkers like al-Farabi (10th century), Avicenna (11th century), Averroes (12th century), al-Ghazali (12th century), Ash-Shatibi (13th century) and Ibn Khaldun (14th century) are reconstructing a Europe that is not only an illusion but also self-deceptive about its past.

[And Ramadan is being deceptive and delusional about Islam's presumed contribution to the European heritage. I don't know anything about Farabi and Ash-hatibi and Ibn Khaldun, but I do know something about Avicenna and Averroes - and as admirable as those two thinkers were, I would have liked Ramadan to specify just what it is that these 5 names he mentions contributed uniquely to Western thought that had not also been thought about by Christian thinkers. In other words, if these men had not lived, what significant chunks of Western thought might not now be there? And does much remain about the thought of these men in current Islamic thought or in Islamic thinking during the past 6 centuries since these illustrious Muslims left the world? And what about today? What positive contributions have the Muslims in Europe made to the societies they live in when they refuse to even adapt to the culture of the host countries?]

What the West needs most today is not so much a dialogue with other civilizations but an honest dialogue with itself - one that acknowledges those traditions within Western civilization that are almost never recognized. Europe, in particular, must learn to reconcile itself with the diversity of its past in order to master the coming pluralism of its future. [What diversity of its past? Until the immigration waves into Europe of the past few decades, what impact did Islam have at all on European culture? Islam stopped at the Bosporus in 1452 and got stuck there for 6 centuries - until the Open Sesame of current European immigration laws!]

The Pope's visit to Turkey presents an opportunity to put forward the true terms of the debate over the relationship between Islam and the West.

First, it is necessary to stop presenting this visit as if it were a trip to a country whose religion and culture are alien to Europe. Selective about its past, Europe is becoming blind to its present. The European continent has been home to a sizable population of Muslims for centuries. [How sizable exactly in terms of percentage? Ramadan is supposed to be a scholar - he would be far more convincing if he used numbers instead of approximative terms that give the impression of describing things to be much much more than they actually were or are!]

While visiting Turkey, the Pope must acknowledge that he is encountering not a potential threat but a mirror. Islam is already a European religion. [SAY AGAIN? What are the actual numbers in Europe, even with immigrant influx?]

Rather than focus on differences, the true dialogue between the Pope and Islam, and between secularized societies and Islamic ones, should emphasize our common, universal values: mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy. [Strange that none of these values appear to be expressed in the laws and actual culture of most of the Muslim countries!]

Though most of the media attention is directed at a marginal minority of radicals, millions of European Muslims are quietly proving every day that they can live perfectly well in secular societies [Right!- maintaining themselves within rigid enclaves and disdaining to adapt themselves to the culture of their host country is 'living perfectly well' in those societies?] and share a strong ethical pedestal (????) with Jews, Christians and atheist humanists. [We will believe it when the leaders of all the Muslim enclaves within the European countries issue a simple common statement that they condemn terrorism and other forms of violence - whether committed in the name of religion or not - to attain political ends. And one other thing. There must be an equivalent in the Koran somewhere about 'doing unto others what you would have others do unto you' - the Golden Rule as a great definition of reciprocity! But how then would that square with the scandalous lack of reciprocity in most Muslim nations' treatment of their non-Muslim minorities?.]

Let us hope that the Pope will be able to transform his former perception of the threat of "the Other," of Islam, into a more open approach - by strongly highlighting the ethical teachings the religions have in common and the ways they can contribute together to the future of a pluralistic Europe. [Sure! Islam is against abortion maybe, but not against contraception, for instance; and it may frown on homosexuality but it allows divorce. If one really looked at the ethical values that Christians and Muslims share, one ends up with a meager list indeed. Perhaps most important, whatever 'moderate' Muslims may profess about allegiance to a 'culture of life', they will never be believable for as long as they do not condemn the 'culture of death' which their extremist brothers are promoting and practising!]

Benedict XVI should be free to express his opinions without risk of impassioned denunciation. But the least one can expect from the Pope - especially in this difficult era of fear and suspicion - is that he help bridge the divide and create new spaces of confidence and trust.


• Tariq Ramadan, a research fellow at Oxford, is the author of several books on Islam, including To Be a European Muslim.

[Frankly, I expected better of an Oxford scholar than to offer the arguments he did which is a deliberate, almost risible, misrepresentation of fact; it is intellectually dishonest.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/11/2006 4.21]

Anti-pope protest planned for Istanbul

Published: 11/20/2006
Turkish Press.com

Ankara - A pro-Islamic political party in Turkey is hoping for as many as 100,000 people will turn out in Istanbul on Sunday, November 26, to protest against the upcoming visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI.

According to a press release issued by the Saadet (Happiness) Party on Monday, the protesters will march under the banner "Don't let the ignorant and sly pope come to Turkey." [Does this sound like something out of that Borat movie to anybody besides me?]

Muslims in Turkey and across the world were outraged when the pope made a speech in Germany in September in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying that Islam is a religion spread by the sword.

Pope Benedict XVI has since expressed his regret that the comments caused offence.

Turkish authorities are believed to organizing an enormous security operation for the pope's November 28 to December 1 visit.

I do have to reconstruct my long post, after all - I hope I can remember all those parenthetical comments I put the first time!

Everyone has been speculating, of course, on what Benedict XVI could possibly say in Turkey after Regensburg. The animus raised in the Muslim world is bound to affect not only what he says to Islam or about Islam but also what he says to Bartholomew and the issues that matter to Bartholomew.

The Time article unfortunately gives little shrift to the principal reason for this apostolic voyage, which is ecumenical rather than inter-religious or inter-cultural. Granted, after Regensburg, Islam becomes the 800-pound gorilla that's bound to impose its presence everywhere and on every aspect of this trip.

==============================================================

The Passion of the Pope
With his blunt talk on Islam, Benedict XVI is altering the debate
between the Muslim world and the West.
On the eve of his visit to Turkey, TIME looks at the roots of the Pope's views--
and how they may define his place in history
By DAVID VAN BIEMA, JEFF ISRAELY/ROME
Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006
TIME Magazine
Cover story




For the traveling Pontiff, it was not a laid-back Turkish holiday. The citizens of the proud, predominantly Muslim nation had no love of Popes. To the East, the Iranian government was galvanizing anti-Western feeling. The news reported that an escaped killer was on the loose, threatening to assassinate the Pontiff when he arrived.

Yet the Holy Father was undaunted. "Love is stronger than danger," he said. "I am in the hands of God." He fared forward -to Ankara, to Istanbul - and preached the commonality of the world's great faiths. He enjoined both Christians and Muslims to "seek ties of friendship with other believers who invoke the name of a single God."

He did not leave covered with garlands, but he set a groundwork for what would be years of rapprochement between the Holy See and Islam. He was a uniter, not a divider. [Now right off, I object to this statement. It implies that Benedict is a divider. And this, of course, is the inherent trap that comes from invidious comparisons - direct or indirect.

That was 1979 and Pope John Paul II. But when Benedict XVI travels to Turkey next week on his first visit to a Muslim country since becoming Pope last year, he is unlikely to cloak himself in a downy banner of brotherhood, the way his predecessor did 27 years ago.

Instead, Benedict, 79, will arrive carrying a different reputation: that of a hard-knuckle intellect with a taste for blunt talk and interreligious confrontation. Just 19 months into his tenure, the Pope has become as much a moral lightning rod as a theologian; suddenly, when he speaks, the whole world listens. And so what takes place over four days in three Turkish cities has the potential to define his papacy - and a good deal more.

Few people saw this coming. Nobody truly expected Benedict to be a mere caretaker Pope - his sometimes ferocious 24-year tenure as the Vatican's theological enforcer and John Paul's right hand suggested anything but passivity. But this same familiarity argued against surprises.

The new Pontiff was expected to sustain John Paul's conservative line on morality and church discipline and focus most of his energies on trimming the Vatican bureaucracy and battling Western culture's "moral relativism." Although acknowledged as a brilliant conservative theologian, Benedict lacked the open-armed charisma of his predecessor.

Moreover, what had initially propelled John Paul to the center of the world stage was his challenge to communism and its subsequent fall, a huge geopolitical event that the Pope helped precipitate with two exhilarating visits to his beloved Polish homeland. By contrast, what could Benedict do? Liberate Bavaria?

Well, not quite. But this year he has emerged as a far more compelling and complex figure than anyone had imagined. [Anyone? Perhaps only those - and the media teems with them - who did not really bother to look behind the facile stereotypes that straitjacketed him in their minds for over two decades!] And much of that has to do with his willingness to confront what some people feel is today's equivalent [far worse, in degree and global impact!] of the communist scourge - the threat of Islamic violence.

The topic is extraordinarily fraught. There are, after all, a billion or so nonviolent Muslims on the globe, [yes, but it's their extremist minority who have had a direct, negative and tragically violent impact on the world today; the billion others are really acquiescent, docile and willing subjects of mostly retrogade regimes who are at once medieval and totalitarian], the Roman Catholic Church's own record in the religious-mayhem department is hardly pristine [Who said it was pristine, but why does no one bring up the four decades of public 'confession and prayer for forgiveness' going back to Nostra aetate that the Catholic Church has manfully carried out through Church documents and multiple Pontifical actions, to atone for past Christian misdeeds? And why doesn't anyone do an actual historical balance of how many Christians were killed by non-Christians and vice-versa in all the wars and conquests waged in the name of religion? You can't forever bring up the Crusades and the conversion of Latin America without recounting Islam's wars of conquests from Arabia to Turkmenistan and India in one direction, to North Africa and Iberia on the other, continuing later towards Byzantium and even as far as Vienna, where it was thankfully repulsed!], and even the most naive of observers understands that the Vicar of Christ might harbor an institutional prejudice against one of Christianity's main global competitors. [He might, but he does not, because the Pope is not a politician - the Vicar of Christ on earth does not play global politics!]

But by speaking out last September in Regensburg, Germany, about the possible intrinsic connection between Islam and violence, the Pontiff suddenly became a lot more interesting. Even when Islamic extremists destroyed several churches and murdered a nun in Somalia, Benedict refused to retract the essence of his remarks.

In one imperfect but powerful stroke, he departed from his predecessor's largely benign approach to Islam and discovered an issue that might attract even the most religiously jaded. In doing so, he managed (for better or worse) to reanimate the clash-of-civilizations discussion by focusing scrutiny on the core question of whether Islam, as a religion, sanctions violence. He was hailed by cultural conservatives worldwide.

Says Helen Hull Hitchcock, a St. Louis, Mo., lay leader who heads the conservative Catholic organization Women for Faith and Family: "He has said what needed to be said."

But Benedict now finds himself in an unfamiliar position as he embarks on the most important mission of his papacy. Having thrust himself to the center of the global debate and earned the vilification of the Muslim street [which knows nothing about what he said except the one line that the extremist agent provocateurs exploited for its explosive polemical potential], he must weigh hard options.

Does he seize his new platform, insisting that another great faith has potentially deadly flaws and daring it to discuss them, while exhorting Western audiences to be morally armed? Or does he back away from further confrontation in the hope of tamping down the rage his words have already provoked?

Those who know him say he was clearly shocked and appalled by the violent reaction to the Germany speech. Yet it seems unlikely that he will completely drop the topic and the megaphone he has discovered he is holding. "The Pope has the intention to say what he thinks," says a high-ranking Vatican diplomat. "He may adjust his tone, but his direction won't change."

If the test of a new act is to see how well it plays in a tough room, Benedict has certainly booked himself into a doozy. (Never under-estimate the resourcefulness of Benedict, which comes not only from his own intellect but from his total trust that after he has done his part the best way he can, God will provide what he can't !)

In the racial memory of Western Europe, the Turks were the face of militant Islam, besieging Vienna in 1529 and 1683 and for centuries thereafter representing a kind of stock bogeyman. In 2002, after nearly a century of determinedly secularist rule, the country elected a moderate Islamist party [that has lately seemed ready to do anything to court or placate militant Islam[]. For many in the West, that makes Turkey simultaneously a symbol of hope (of moderation [how, when for the first time since Ataturk founded the secular state of Turkey, religion is taking center stage in politics?) and fear (of Islamism).

The Pope's original invitation came in 2005, from the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which represents a nervous 0.01% of the country's population. The Turkish government, miffed that as a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had opposed Turkey's urgent bid to join the European Union, finally issued its own belated offer for 2006.

But even now, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discovered a previous engagement that will take him out of the country while Benedict is in it. Although modest, sales of a Turkish novel subtitled Who Will Kill the Pope in Istanbul? (the book fingers everyone but Islamists) have increased as his trip approaches.

The country is expected to place about 22,000 policemen on the streets of Istanbul while he is there. "This is a very high-risk visit," says Cengiz Aktar, a Turkish political scientist. "There is a vocal nationalist movement here, and there is the Pope, a man who likes to play with fire." [He does? He's fearless but not reckless!]

Actually, Benedict will probably try to stay away from matches during his successive stops in Ankara, Ephesus and Istanbul. Speculation about what the Pope will say and do on this visit has consumed Rome for weeks. Papal watchers say Benedict cannot out-Regensburg himself, but gauzy talk about the compatibility of Christianity and Islam isn't likely either.

Over the course of his career, Benedict has been averse to reciting multifaith platitudes, an aversion that has sharpened as he has focused on Islam. And that's what could make his coming encounter with the Muslim world, says David Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict, either "a step toward religious harmony or toward holy war."

A BRIGHT-LINES KIND OF GUY

In 1986, Pope John Paul convened a remarkable multifaith summit in the medieval Italian town of Assisi. Muslims and Sikhs, Zoroastrians and the Archbishop of Canterbury, among others, convened to celebrate their (distinct) spiritualities and pray for peace. It was a signature John Paul moment, but not everybody caught the vibe.

"It was a disaster," sniffs an observer. "People were praying together, and nobody had any idea what they were praying to." The witness, whose view undoubtedly reflected that of his boss, was an aide to Cardinal Ratzinger.

Unlike John Paul, who had a big-tent approach, Ratzinger has always favored bright theological lines and correspondingly high walls between creeds he regards as unequally meritorious. His long-standing habit is to correct any aide who calls a religion other than Christianity or Judaism a "faith." [Really????]

Prior to his papacy, the culmination of this philosophy was his office's 1999 Vatican document Dominus Jesus, which described non-Catholics as being in a "gravely deficient situation" regarding salvation. The fact that this offended some of the deficient parties did not particularly bother him. Notes the same assistant: "To understand each other ... you have to talk about what divides."

That approach includes Islam. In Ratzinger's 1996 interview book Salt of the Earth (with Peter Seewald), he noted that "we must recognize that Islam is not a uniform thing. No one can speak for [it] as a whole. There is a noble Islam, embodied, for example, by the King of Morocco, and there is also the extremist, terrorist Islam, which, again, one must not identify with Islam as a whole, which would do it an injustice."

This sophisticated understanding, however, did not keep Ratzinger from slapping down [????So un-Ratzi!]a bishop who wanted to invite peaceable Muslims to a papal ceremony in Fatima, Portugal, or, in 2004, from objecting to Turkish E.U. entry on grounds that it has always been "in permanent contrast to Europe," a contrast his other writings made clear had much to do with religion.

Islam played a particular role - as both a threat and a model -in the drama that probably lies closest to Benedict's heart: the secularization of Christian Europe. In the same 1996 book, he wrote that "the Islamic soul reawakened" in reaction to the erosion of the West's moral stature during the 1960s.

Ratzinger paraphrased that soul's new song: "We know who we are; our religion is holding its ground; you don't have one any longer. We have a moral message that has existed without interruption since the prophets, and we will tell the world how to live it, where the Christians certainly can't."

After Sept. 11, Ratzinger's attitude toward Islam seems to have hardened. According to Gibson, the Cardinals in the conclave that elected Ratzinger made it clear that they expected a tougher dialogue with the other faith.

After the London subway bombings in July 2005, the new Pope responded to the question of whether Islam was a "religion of peace" - as George W. Bush, among others, has always stressed [Of course, trying to make nice!] - by saying, "Certainly there are also elements that can favor peace."

When he met with moderate German Muslims in the city of Cologne that August, Benedict delivered a fairly blunt warning that "those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations."

In Rome, he removed Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a relatively dovish Islam expert, as head of the Vatican's office on interreligious dialogue and replaced an ongoing study of Christian violence during the Crusades with one on Islamic violence today. And he has stepped up the Vatican's insistence on reciprocity - demanding the same rights for Christians in Muslim-majority countries that Muslims enjoy in the West.

All of this led observers to expect him to eventually make a major statement about Islam, although most assumed that it wouldn't stray too far from John Paul's fraternal tone. Nobody anticipated what happened in southern Germany.

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

On Sept. 12, 2006, the day after the world had marked the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Benedict threw himself into the maelstrom. The unlikely venue was his old teaching grounds, the University of Regensburg.

His vehicle was a talk about reason as part of Christianity's very essence. His nominal target was his usual suspect, the secular West, which he said had committed the tragic error of discarding Christianity as reason-free. But this time he had an additional villain in his sights: Islam, which he said actually did undervalue rationality and which he strongly suggested was consequently more inclined to violence. [The writers are extrapolating too much from Benedict's actual statements.]

To show that Islam sees God as so transcendent that reason is extraneous, Benedict cited an 11th century Muslim sage named Ibn Hazm. To establish the connection between this position and violence, he quoted a 15th century Christian Byzantine Emperor (and head of the Byzantine, or Eastern, Church) named Manuel II Paleologus.

Paleologus criticized Muslims for "spreading [their faith] by the sword," both because "God is not pleased by blood" and because true conversion depended on reason. "Show me just what the Muhammad brought that was new," Paleologus said, in a passage quoted by Benedict, "and there you will find things only evil and inhuman."

It remains unclear whether Benedict was deliberately trying to raise the temperature. Many analysts, especially in Rome, think he knew exactly what he was saying and regard the Islamic section of the 35-min. speech as a brave and eloquent warning of Islam's inherent violence [again, I question this extreme extrapolation] and of a faithless West's inability to offer moral response.

Yet Benedict's argument was slapdash and flawed. His sage, Ibn Hazm, turned out to have belonged to a school with no current adherents,[It's not a question of whether his 'school' has 'adherents' today, but whether his concept of God as pure will is not that which prevails in Islamic thought today, and it seems to be!] and although reason's primacy is debated in Islam, it is very much part of the culture that developed algebra. [Yes, but that culture, which the West refers to as the Islamic Golden Age, was snuffed out by those interpreters of the Koran who not only stopped Islamic development cold but set it back to Mohammed's 10th century mindset - and they have hardly left that mindset for the past 600 years!]

Paleologus' forced-conversion accusation misrepresents the sweep of Muslim history, since more often than not, Islam has left religious groups in conquered territory intact, if hobbled. And assuming that a punctilious scholar like Benedict really wanted to engage on Islam and violence, why do it through the idiosyncratic lens of an embattled king in the 1400s who made his name partly for his efforts at drumming up enthusiasm for a new Crusade? [Has anyone considered it might be because Paleologus, who found himself beleaguered by the Ottomans on the eve of the final fall of Byzantium, is the perfect symbol for Europe today that is beleaguered, perhaps as fatally as Byzantium was; and that the bid by the Ottoman Turks to conquer Byzantium with their armies is analogous to the Islamic extremists' current bid to take over Europe by terrorism and their fifth column of immigrants in all the European countries? ]

The reaction to the speech was intense. [One might perhaps note that it didn't reach the level nor the length of violence aroused belatedly by the Danish cartoons - and find that significant!]. Small bands of Muslim thugs burned Benedict in effigy, attacked the churches in the Middle East and, on Sept. 17, murdered the nun in Somalia.

Over the course of a month, Benedict issued a series of partial apologies and corrections [????] unprecedented in the papacy. He expressed regret to those offended, summoned a group of Muslim notables to make the point personally and disowned the "evil and inhuman" slur on Muhammad as Manuel's sentiment but not his own. He even issued a second version of the speech to reflect those sentiments. [I could quibble with this misleading statement but it's minor so I won't.]

But he never retracted his more basic association of Islam with unreason and violence. Indeed, if he had, it would have caused considerable confusion - if only because the behavior of the extremists seemed, at least to some, to prove his point. No editorialist could express frustration with him for initiating the row without condemning the subsequent carnage - and a good many decided his only fault was in speaking truth.

Says a high-ranking Western diplomat in Rome: "It was time to let the rabbit out of the can, and he did. I admire his courage. Part of the Koran lends itself to being shanghaied by terrorists, and he can do what politicians can't."

In late October, Benedict received a different kind of validation in an open "Your Holiness" letter from 38 of the best-known names in Islamic theology. The missive politely eviscerated[Prove that!] his Regensburg speech but went on to "applaud" the Pope's "efforts to oppose the dominance of positivism and materialism in human life" and expressed a desire for "frank and sincere dialogue." [Yes, but yet again, the letter - which appears to have been a PR coup - is being accepted uncritically, and no one has yet scrutinized it for for false or flawed arguments!]

At a time when the credibility of Western political leaders in the Muslim world has sunk to new depths, the letter treated Benedict as a spokesman for the West.

Says a Vatican insider with a shrug: "Everyone's asking, Did the Pope make a mistake? Was it intentional? It doesn't really matter at this point." Whether Benedict had actually intended Regensburg to be the catalyst, he had become a player.

THE PAPAL MEGAPHONE

After Regensburg, the mainstream Italian daily La Stampa ran the headline THE POPE AND BUSH ALLIED AGAINST TERROR. The association with the Iraq war and U.S. interrogation methods must have horrified the Pontiff, if only because it could undermine the church's honest-broker role in regional conflicts.

"It's easy to say, 'Go Benedict! Hit the Muslims!'" says Gibson. "But that's not who he is. He is not a Crusader."

Shortly before Regensburg, Benedict had endured Western criticism for repeatedly demanding a cease-fire after Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Angelo Cardinal Scola, a protégé of the Pope's who edits Oasis, a Church quarterly on dialogue with Islam, says the fact "that radical Islam can turn to violence does not mean we must respond with a crusade."

The Pope's pursuit of his newfound calling as Islamic interlocutor will be tricky, theologically and politically. Unlike the holy books of Judaism and Christianity, the Koran and Hadiths contain verses precisely regulating the conduct of war and exhorting Muslims to wage battle against various enemies.

The bellicosity of some Koranic passages owes much to the fact that they were written at a time when Muslims were engaged in almost constant warfare to defend their religion. [Not against Christians at that time, but against pagan tribes who held temporal power in their part of the world!]

But when suicide bombers today go to their fates with the Koran's verses on their lips, it invites questions about Islam's credentials as a religion that is willing to police its own claims of peace and tolerance.

As conservative Catholic scholar Michael Novak points out, the Vatican's pacifism gives Benedict unmatched moral standing to press this point. "Being against war, he can say tougher things ... than any President or Prime Minister can. His role is to represent Western civilization." [I suggest Novak read Magister's commentaries on the Vatican's standing by 'just war,' because to speak of 'Vatican pacifism' makes it seem like the Church has joined the 'peace-at-any-cost' Kumbaya liberals!]

Perhaps so, but then he might have to represent its past as well, including all the historical violence done in Jesus' name (despite the Gospels' pacifism). Discussion of Christianity's dark hours has not been his penchant. [Oh please, not this again! When has Joseph Ratzinger or Benedict XVI shirked from the truth - the Crusades, the Inquisition, sex abuses by priests?

Moreover, the position Benedict took in Regensburg - that Islam and violence are indeed essentially connected [that's an offensively sweeping conclusion to draw, when at most, what he said was 'violence is against the nature of God who is reason and love,'as a way of inviting Islam to look into its teachings that may justify violence in the name of God] - worked as an opening gambit but doesn't leave much room for either side to maneuver.

People asked to flatly renounce their Holy Writ generally don't. [He did no such thing! He didn't ask Islam to renounce the Koran! How could he? It's not his business, and he's not stupid!] And Benedict has little give [again, don't underestimate his abilities!] - because first, he seldom says anything he is not prepared to defend to the bitter end and second, if he retreats now [Does anyone really imagine Benedict retreating from a principle?], he risks being accused of the same moral relativism that he rails against.

Still, many Catholics are rooting for him to come up with a way to engage without enraging. The widely read Catholic blogger Amy Welborn says, "I think there's a pretty widespread fed-up-ness with Islamic sensitivity. I agree that elements of Islam that either explicitly espouse violence or are less than aggressive in combatting it need to be challenged and nudged, [just as] I would like to see the Pope continue to challenge and nudge people of all different religions - Christian and non-Christian - to look at the suffering of people."

She thinks that, given the heat he's taking in parts of the Islamic world, his willingness to go through with his Turkish trip is "so brave."

But what should he do while he's there? John Esposito, a respected Islam scholar at Georgetown University, says the Pope can't confine himself to meetings with Christian leaders. "He must address the Muslim majority."

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor at George Washington University and one of the 38 signatories to the October letter to Benedict, says the Pope should deliver an "earnest expression of commonality" - even if it's only the widely accepted observation that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim descent from the biblical figure of Abraham. [What, let him deliver platitudes???? We're beyond that! ]

Father Richard McBrien, a theologian at Notre Dame, says that "if he doesn't bring up the issue of reciprocal respect for Christian minorities, he's not doing his job," but that he should avoid an absolutist, now-or-never stance.

High-ranking Vatican sources say Benedict will avoid repeating the Islam-and-violence trope in any form as blatant as Regensburg's. Instead, suggests Father Thomas Reese, a senior research fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown, the Pope may take a less broad-brush approach to the issue by repeating his sentiment from Cologne: "He could say, 'You, like me, are concerned about terrorism' and he would like to see Islamic clerics be more up front condemning it."

Once over the hump, happier topics should be easy to find. "Quite frankly," says Reese, "the Pope and the Muslims are on the same page on abortion. They [agree on] relativism and consumerism, hedonistic culture, sex and violence, Palestinian rights."

[I am actually surprised Fathers McBrien and Reese have benign words about Benedict for a change.]

Conceivably, like John Paul's first journey back to communist Poland, Benedict's simple presence in this Muslim land may speak louder than words.

Whether this is the way Benedict will choose to proceed remains to be seen. But whatever he does, bold or subtle, the explosiveness of the current relationship between Islam and the West will require him to become a diplomat as much as a scholar.

As he strives to assume that role, holding out an olive branch to other religions while fiercely defending his own, the Pope may want to consider the story of a much earlier walker of the Catholic-Islamic tightrope.

In the 13th century, during the middle of the Fifth Crusade, St. Francis of Assisi briefly departed Italy and journeyed to the Holy Land to evangelize to the Muslims.

According to Christian traditions, he preached the gospel to the Sultan, only to be told that Muslims were as convinced of the truth of Islam as Francis was of Christianity.

At that, Francis proposed that he and a Muslim walk through a fire to test whose faith was stronger. The Sultan said he didn't know whether he could locate a volunteer. Francis said he would walk through the fire by himself. Impressed with Francis' devotion, the Sultan, while maintaining his own faith, agreed to a truce between the two warring sides.

Francis' precise methods may be a bit outdated. But 800 years later, his mixture of flexibility and tenacity could be a useful paradigm for a frank and sincere dialogue in an ever turbulent religious world.

[But don't you see that going to Turkey is Benedict's 'walking through fire'!!]

With reporting by With reporting by Jeff Chu/ New York, Andrew Purvis/ Berlin, Pelin Turgut/ Ankara with other bureaus

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/11/2006 16.36]

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Scritto da: TERESA BENEDETTA 21/11/2006 8.39

A BRIGHT-LINES KIND OF GUY

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Unlike John Paul, who had a big-tent approach, Ratzinger has always favored bright theological lines and correspondingly high walls between creeds he regards as unequally meritorious. His long-standing habit is to correct any aide who calls a religion other than Christianity or Judaism a "faith." [Really????]

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Aside the fact some journalists sound like they just aim to diminish Pope Benedict's personality when compared to his predecessor's (an attempt I myself experience every day reading the Italian press ), the subject of the difference between faith and religion would be very interesting to debate. I am currently reading "Truth and Tolerance" (Italian translation) and I just reached the point in chapter 1 where Ratzinger faces the question of the difference between the two concepts. He reports Barth's position as faith (God's gift to mankind) being the opposite of religion (human attempts to find and understand God), but he does not fully agree to that theological approach. Here is the English version from Truth and Tolerance, chapter 1 I found in the internet (lucky me ):

"To me, the concept of Christianity without religion is contradictory and illusory. Faith has to express itself as a religion and through religion, though of course it cannot be reduced to religion. The tradition of these two concepts should be studied anew with this consideration in mind. For Thomas Aquinas, for instance, "religion" is a subdivision of the virtue of righteousness and is, as such, necessary, but it is of course quite different from the "infused virtue" of faith. It seems to me that a postulate of the first order of any carefully differentiated theology of religions would be the precise clarification of the concepts of faith and religion, which are mostly used so as to pass vaguely into each other, and both are equally used in generalized fashion. Thus, people talk of "faiths" in the plural and intend thereby to designate all religions, although the idea of faith is by no means present in all religions, is certainly not constitutive element for all of them, and—insofar, as it does occur—means very different things in them. The broadening of the concept of religion as an overall designation for the relationship of man to the transcendent, on the other hand, has only happened in the second part of the modern period. Such a clarification is urgently needed, especially for Christianity to have a proper understanding of itself and for the way it relates to other world religions.

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Can or must a man simply make the best of the religion that happens to fall to his share, in the form in which it is actually practiced around him? Or must he not, whatever happens, be one who seeks, who strives to purify his conscience and, thus, move toward—at the very least—the purer forms of his own religion? If we cannot assume as given such an inner attitude of moving onward, if we do not have to assume it, then the anthropological basis for mission disappears. The apostles, and the early Christian congregations as a whole, were only able to see in Jesus their Savior because they were looking for the "hope of Israel"—because they did not simply regard the inherited religious forms of their environment as being sufficient in themselves but were waiting and seeking people with open hearts. The Church of the Gentiles could develop only because there were "Godfearers", people who went beyond their traditional religion and looked for something greater. This dynamic imparted to "religion" is also in a certain sense the case—this is what is true about what Barth and Bonhoeffer say—with Christianity itself. It is not simply a network of institutions and ideas we have to hand on but a seeking ever in faith for faith’s inmost depth, for the real encounter with Christ. In that way—to say it again—in Judaism the "poor of Israel" developed; in that way they would have to develop, again and again, within the Church; and in that way they can and they should develop in other religions: it is the dynamic of the conscience and of the silent presence of God in it that is leading religions toward one another and guiding people onto the path to God, not the canonizing of what already exists, so that people are excused from any deeper searching".

Our Pope Benedict certainly believes, as we do, that Christ is the only Saviour of the world but I can’t imagine him, being the open-minded intellectual he his, just scolding and correcting any assistants like a hysterical primary school teacher. There is much more behind his corrections than pure desire of keeping high walls between creeds and I think his words on this point might have been, as always, gravely misunderstood by journalists who are not interested in showing him for what he really is but just want to keep up with prejudices.

Thanks very much, Discipula, for those pertinent excerpts from 'Truth and Tolerance'. As my parenthetical comment to the Time article assertion cannot convey the sardonic tone in which I meant the 'Really???' - i.e., like you, I cannot imagine Joseph Ratzinger going heavily pedantic on his aides, or on anyone else for that matter - I am glad you did find the precise citation where Ratzi makes clear that faith is not necessarily a constitutive element of all religions.

Papal trip to Turkey: Key questions test Benedict's pontificate

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI travels to Turkey in late November, a four-day visit aimed at building bridges with Islam, reaffirming dialogue with Orthodox Christians and encouraging a tiny Catholic minority in a Muslim country.

The Nov. 28-Dec. 1 trip was first envisioned as an ecumenical event, but interreligious issues have taken center stage. The pope's remarks about Islam at the University of Regensburg in September upset many Muslims, and Turkey will offer the pope a platform to explain his views to the Islamic world.

It will be the pope's fifth visit outside Italy and his first to a country with a Muslim majority. He arrives in Ankara for meetings with government officials, goes to the historic site of Ephesus for Mass, and closes out his visit with Orthodox and Catholic communities in Istanbul.

Situated where Asia and Europe meet, Turkey has for centuries been a place where Islamic cultures met the "Christian" West -- often in conflict, as at the time of the Crusades. In the current climate of global cultural and religious tensions, that makes the papal visit all the more significant.

"It's an extremely important trip," said Father Justo Lacunza Balda, an official of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome.

"There are so many issues that touch Turkey, including dialogue with Muslims, cultural and religious identity, the future of Europe, church-state relations, religious freedom and ecumenism. The pope's visit is a sign of respect for the country and a sign that these issues need to be discussed," he said.

On several levels, the trip represents a test of Pope Benedict's 18-month-old pontificate. Vatican officials believe the results will hinge on answers to some key questions:

-- Can the pope begin to heal the recent rift with Islam, while still engaging Muslims in honest dialogue on crucial issues -- including the question of faith and violence?

-- Can the pope get a hearing from the Turkish population and government hosts when he speaks about the importance of religious freedom and human rights in a modern democracy?

-- When he meets with Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, will the pope simply be keeping up a tradition, or can he use the encounter to generate ecumenical momentum and direction?

Pope Benedict knows how important this trip is, and he's showing it by taking along five top Vatican cardinals, including those responsible for interreligious and ecumenical dialogue.

The tone of the visit may become clear on the opening day, when the pope meets with government officials and diplomats in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

On his way into the city from the airport, the pope will make a brief but significant stop at the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The pope is expected to write a sentence or two in the guest book, and his words may offer a thematic clue to the visit -- especially on the issue of church-state relations.

At the Ankara State Guest House, the pope will be greeted by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The absence of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be out of the country at a NATO summit, has been seen as a snub by many observers, but Vatican officials say the scheduling conflict was known for months.

One of the most interesting encounters of the first day will be the pope's meeting with Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey's directorate of religious affairs. After the Regensburg speech, Bardakoglu sharply criticized the pope's remarks on Islam and said the pontiff should "rid himself of feelings of hate" and apologize. He later accepted the pope's expression of regret.

Both the pope and Bardakoglu will deliver speeches. Church officials hope it will be an opportunity for mending bridges and looking ahead, rather than a revival of the recent polemics. Bardakoglu, in fact, has said he doesn't intend to bring up the Regensburg speech unless the pope does.

At the Vatican, sources say they expect the pope to present a strongly positive message, communicating his respect for Muslim believers and his appreciation for the values of Turkish society and indicating common ground in the idea that civil society cannot exclude God.

On Nov. 29 the pope will say Mass at a Marian sanctuary near Ephesus, a center of early Christianity that St. Paul used as a missionary base. The shrine, called the House of the Virgin, is believed by some to be the place where Mary lived at the end of her life and is visited by some 3 million pilgrims each year -- most of them Muslims, according to church sources.

The pope lands in Istanbul later Nov. 29, and the focus of the visit turns ecumenical. He will attend a prayer service that evening at the headquarters of Patriarch Bartholomew and will return there for a major liturgy to mark the Nov. 30 feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of the patriarchate. The pope and patriarch will then sign a joint declaration on the continuing search for Christian unity.

Vatican and Orthodox officials don't want the ecumenical side of the Turkey trip to be overlooked.

"We are very unhappy with the fact that people are only talking about the interreligious aspect. The main purpose of the trip remains ecumenical, and we hope it will bring a new impetus and enthusiasm for dialogue with the Orthodox churches," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top ecumenist.

The pope also will visit the heads of the Syrian Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox churches in Turkey and will meet privately with Turkey's chief rabbi in Istanbul.

In a visit that was rescheduled from a Friday to Thursday in order not to risk offending Muslims on their day of prayer, the pope will tour the Hagia Sophia Museum -- an architectural masterpiece that began as an Orthodox church, was transformed into a mosque in the 15th century and became a museum in 1935.

The pope's final day is dedicated to Turkey's tiny Catholic minority, estimated to number about 33,000 -- about .05 percent of the population.

He will say Mass in Istanbul's small Cathedral of the Holy Spirit; those who can't squeeze into the church can watch the liturgy on screens in the courtyard of the nearby Church of St. Anthony.

Throughout the visit, the pope is likely to highlight the church's deep roots in Turkey. Asia Minor was visited by apostles and was home to church fathers, and every ecumenical council during Christianity's first millennium was held on what is now Turkish territory.

At some point, the pope also is expected to remember the sacrifice of a modern evangelizer: Father Andrea Santoro, an Italian missionary who was shot and killed by a 16-year-old Muslim last February.

Both Orthodox and Catholic leaders hope the papal visit will boost their ongoing efforts for recognition of religious rights. Catholic officials, for example, have been pressing for legal recognition of the Latin-rite church, which has no juridical status in Turkey.

Turkey's Constitution protects freedom of conscience, but the country's brand of secularism controls all religious activity and keeps an especially tight rein on religious minorities.

Church leaders are hoping that Turkey's projected entry into the European Union will provide leverage for greater protection of their rights. But that could backfire; European pressure on human rights is thought to be one reason for a recent decline in support for EU entry among Turks.

If the pope does address the religious liberty issue, he may choose to cite Turkey's own Constitution, rather than ask the country to meet European standards.

Turkey mobilizing to protect pope

The Associated Press
International Herald Tribune

When Pope Benedict XVI comes to Turkey next week, he will be protected by a heavy security operation amid fears the visit may set off a renewed wave of anger over his recent comments linking Islam to violence.

Turkey, which is striving to show that it is a modern nation ready to join the European Union, is trying to make sure the visit passes without a hitch. A huge force of snipers, bomb disposal experts, riot police and anti-terrorism agents will be deployed at each of Benedict's stops.

Police helicopters will hover above the cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir during the visit next Tuesday through Friday, and navy commandos with machine guns will patrol the Bosporus in inflatable boats.

Benedict's first trip to a Muslim nation comes at a time of heightened tensions between the West and Islam. And it is the pope himself who has recently been at the center of those tensions.

The Muslim world erupted in protest after Benedict delivered a speech in September in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

The controversy died down after the pope expressed regret for causing offense, but there are concerns that festering resentments may be reignited by Benedict's visit to Turkey.

On Wednesday, the police detained about 40 members of a Turkish nationalist party who had occupied one of Istanbul's most famous buildings, the Hagia Sophia, to protest the papal visit.

The demonstrators belonging to the Great Unity Party entered the former Byzantine church and mosque, shouting "Allahu akbar!" - "God is great!" - and then knelt to pray.

They also shouted a warning to Benedict: "Pope, don't make a mistake, don't wear out our patience."

When the group refused to surrender, a police officer used pepper spray on them.

The protesters were rounded up and loaded into police buses that took them to a nearby station for questioning, the police said.

Benedict is scheduled to tour the Hagia Sophia, which is a source of religious sensitivity in Turkey. It was one of the world's greatest Christian churches for more than 1,000 years, but was converted into a mosque after the conquest of Istanbul by Ottoman Turks in 1453. Today, the Hagia Sophia is a museum, and public religious ceremonies inside are forbidden.

On Nov. 2, a man fired shots outside the Italian Consulate in Istanbul to protest Benedict's visit, shouting that he would strangle the pope.

The man was arrested, but the incident revived memories of the 1981 assassination attempt on the Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, in Rome.

Agca, who has said he wants to be released from jail and meet Benedict during his visit, previously warned that the pope's life would be in danger if he came to Turkey.

The authorities, who anticipate large protests in the streets, plan to close several areas of central Istanbul to traffic and are preparing lists of residents living in those neighborhoods.

"If this trip would have occurred under normal conditions, then these lands, the center of tolerance and love, would show the necessary hospitality to him," said a statement from the opposition pro-Islamic Felicity Party, which is calling for a protest against the pope's visit on Sunday in Istanbul.

"But we don't want to see him on our soil because of the remarks he made about Islam's Prophet Muhammad on Sept. 12 and for not apologizing afterward."

Turkish security forces have had extensive experience in protecting world leaders, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The military is one of the most powerful institutions in the nation, a highly trained force that enjoys widespread admiration.

Still, senior anti-terrorism police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said they were concerned that some protests of the pope's visit could become violent.

Several radical Islamic groups are active in Turkey, including local elements of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda.

The group was blamed for the killings of 58 people in a wave of suicide bombings against synagogues and British interests in Istanbul three years ago.

About 70 suspected Qaeda operatives who were implicated in the attacks are on trial.

Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, has compared the pontiff to Pope Urban II, who in 1095 ordered the First Crusade to establish Christian control in the Holy Land.

Anger at the West was growing in Turkey even before the pope's comments.

A Turkish teenager shot and killed a Catholic priest, the Reverend Andrea Santoro, as he knelt in prayer inside his church on Feb. 5 in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon.

After the killing of Santoro, two more Catholic clerics were assaulted in Turkey.

The attacks were believed to be related to widespread anger in the Islamic world over the publication in European newspapers of caricatures of Muhammad.

To all those who post articles regarding Papa's upcoming trip to Turkey: I have been reading the articles... trying to put everything into perspective. All the while my mind and my heart are having an internal conversation. My mind says that he will be 1 of the most protected people in the world while he is in Turkey. I won't tell you what my heart says... but images of the protests back in September come close to describing it. I have taken my time posting on the articles because I can only read so much at a time and then I have to do something else. So if I haven't posted responses like I normally would... that is why. Thank you all for keeping the rest of us informed.

Josie in the main forum shares with us this beautiful little piece from IL TEMPO today, translated here:

But no one can frighten Ratzinger!
By ANDREA PAMPARANA

He wears white. The wind sometimes carries off his papal cap and ruffles his snow-white hair. He has been derided for his German accent, insulted because he defends his faith, and mocked for his ideas.

Those who consider him an enemy have not read or studied him, and if they have, they have not understood him. Because to love Benedict XVI, one must read him, study him, and thereby appreciate the full moral and intellectual force of this Pope. [Well, to read him is not necessarily necessary in order to love him - ask any average Catholic who has been raised to love the Pope, any Pope, because he is the Vicar of Christ on earth. Or ask any Benaddict who caught the Benedict bug incurably before knowing very much about him! But of course, once he has caught your interest or devotion, then reading him becomes inevitable - or at least, listening to his words.]

This is a Pope who has written a book on Jesus and alerts his readers, with the humility of a worker in the vineyard of the Lord: "Dear brothers and sisters, this is not a magisterial lesson from me. It is just my own personal research. Criticize me for it, if you must."

Therefore, a man of peace, of reciprocal dialog. A man who speaks about millennial stones that sing the faith - in seeking to overcome the clash of arms, real or verbal, but nevertheless resulting from hate and the evil that lurks in man, from the dark forces which can make our day-to-day existence ugly. A man who, in mourning the assassination of Gemayel in Beirut and the unreason behind it, did not have to blame Iran or Syria.

This man is about to face an important historic trip to Turkey, an ancient land, a great land, gateway for centuries between Islam and the West, today a land of oppressed minorities and genocides that would be erased even from memory (such as the massacre of Armenian Christians in the early 20th century).

Bnedict XVI has wanted very much to make this trip, wanted it with all his heart since he became Pope. Not to bring to Turkey the Cross as an ideological and religious symbol as the Cross of the Crusades was, but the true Cross - that which for centuries has been the tangible sign of peace.

He wants to touch with his hands, to see and to listen to places and traces that recall to him the first teaching of that saint whose name he carries: "Listen, my son, to the teachings of the Master." [Too bad this writer joins many others in overlooking the ecumenical purpose of this trip!]

The Pope has no fears. He cannot have them. The most radical of Grey Wolves and the Muslim Brothers already gave him a taste of their 'welcome' - their occupation of St. Sophia and their clash with the police who came to arrest them. St. Sophia which was one of the most ancient and beautiful basilicas of Cristianity, made into a mosque in 1453, then into the museum which it remains today in 1934, by decision of the founder of the secular state of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk.

The Islamist Party of Happiness has called on all Turks to a grand demonstration on Sunday against the Pope "who unscrupulously insulted the prophet Mohammed". Sixty Islamist organizations and unions have been supporting a campaign against the Pope, issuing manifestos against "the alliance of Crusaders" and are boasting of organizing more than 2,000 buses to bring to Istanbul over a million protesters.

Instead, it is we who fear for him. Because we have the impression, corroborated by explicit fact, that with this trip, the Pope may upset much within that big catch-all of narrow self-interests, economic and mercantile, military and political, which threaten (and are threatened by) this trip - including the Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who, when asked what Italy could do help protect the Pope in Turkey, answered almost obscenely: "Let the Swiss Guard worry about it."

Europe is silent, it sleeps, it has been reduced to stupor by material progress that has slowly eroded its bimillennial cultural patrimony. This is the Europe of the miliion bright and colored lights but fewer and fewer children, a Europe mainfesting ignorance of itself, a lack of pride in what it was and what it ought to be.

And so behind the Pope as he goes to Turkey, there is only us and our prayers for him.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/11/2006 22.19]

Every time I see an item about Mr. Bardakoglu, I get a really bad sinking feeling because he is the master of speaking with a forked tongue. And as he's been giving interviews right and left as the Pope's visit draws nearer, there is no excaping him.

Of course, he may yet turn to be the most gracious and unexceptionable of hosts when he meets the Pope on November 28, since he has said in a previous internview that a host must always be hospitable, regardless. But then I wouldn't want to know what he says once the Pope's back is turned! So here are his latest pronouncements...
===============================================================


Turkish Muslim wants Pope
to say Islam peaceful
By Gareth Jones and Selcuk Gokoluk


ANKARA, Nov. 23 (Reuters) - Turkey's top Muslim official said on Thursday Pope Benedict should state clearly during a planned visit to Turkey next week he believes Islam, like Christianity, to be a religion of peace.

Benedict infuriated Muslims worldwide in September with a lecture that appeared to portray Islam as an irrational religion tainted by violence. Benedict later expressed regret over the pain his remarks [Once again, the drill: It wasn't his 'remarks', properly speaking, but a 14th century quotation he cited that gave rise to all the huffing and puffing and mayhem in the Muslim world] caused but stopped short of a full apology.

"I think the attitude the Pope should take is that neither Islam nor Christianity is a source of violence," said Ali Bardakoglu, who heads Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs which controls Turkish imams and writes their sermons.

"If they ask me if Christianity has been the cause of violence, I would say no, that is not so ... We believe all prophets sent by God, from Moses to Jesus and Mohammad, are messengers of compassion," he told Reuters in an interview.

Violence committed in the name of religion was the fault of fallible and misguided human beings, he said.

"I believe the Pope shares this view and his saying this will be in the interests of all humanity," he said.

Bardakoglu, who meets the Pope next Tuesday at the start of the four-day visit, said in September Benedict must apologize for his remarks and should reconsider his trip to Turkey.

But he told Reuters it was now time to look to the future and said the Pope would receive a hospitable reception in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

He said he would be happy to explain to the Pope the "unbreakable" link between reason and faith in Islam, citing the historic achievements of Islamic science and learning. [He sounded very reasonable, didn't he?, up to this point. Then he turns unbearably condescending, if not insulting of the Pope's education!]

Turkey plans tight security measures for the Pope, whose trip takes in the capital Ankara, the commercial and culture hub of Istanbul and the site where the Virgin Mary is believed to have lived and died near Izmir on the Aegean coast.

Bardakoglu said Turkey was a free country where people had the democratic right to protest.


korazym.org has a picture of protest posters
on the streets of Istanbul which say: "The
ignorant and insidious Pope should not come
to Turkey. No to the alliance of crusaders!"

"But any street protests will not reflect the mainstream hospitable attitude of Turkey," he added.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a pious Muslim, said he expected the Pope to give positive statements that would improve ties between Christians and Muslims.

"I believe it will create a new climate," Gul told Reuters.

"He may make some good statements, saying we have only one God although we have different religions. We have sympathy for each other and we should not exploit the differences in a negative way."

The Pope is due to hold talks during his visit with the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew, who has complained of property and other restrictions his church faces in Turkey.

Bardakoglu defended Turkey's treatment of its tiny Christian community and of other religious minorities.

"If the Pope says Christians in Turkey are mistreated, I will tell him that he has been seriously misinformed," he said.

"For example, we give support to Christians settling in our holiday resorts when they want to build churches. We say this is their natural right and this is guaranteed by laws," he said, referring to a growing number of Europeans retiring in Turkey. [Did anyone at Reuters see fit to investigate the truth of this claim????]

Bardakoglu also signaled he was ready to tackle the Pope over Turkey's bid to join the European Union. Before becoming Pope, Benedict spoke out against Turkey joining the EU, saying it did not belong there because of its religion and culture.

"The European Union as a Christian club would pave the way for other similar groupings that would seriously hurt the cause of world peace. [What is he talking about? The Muslims alone have the Organization of Islamic States and the Arab League, which are exclusively for Muslims. No one is questioning them about that! If having 'similar groupings...seriously hurts world peace,' doesn't that apply to the OIS and the League? But that's a false statement, because the most natural groupings are of like-minded people. Birds of a feather flock together.] For that reason, I think it important that the EU be based on common values rather than religion," he said. [All this lip service to 'common values' - which ones? ]

(Additional reporting by Paul de Bendern in Istanbul)

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/11/2006 16.41]

Past popes haunt Benedict in Turkey

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Reuters

Paris - The ghosts of pontiffs past - the charismatic John Paul II, the kindly John XXIII, the merciful Benedict XV - will haunt professor Benedict XVI in Turkey next week during his first visit to a Muslim country as pope.

Living on the bridge between Christianity and Islam, the Turks have seen Roman Catholic leaders come and go - and they think much less of this one than his predecessors.

Further into the Muslim heartland, sheikhs and scholars in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are even more dismissive of Benedict for what they felt was an insult to Islam in a speech he gave two months ago in his native Germany.

The November 28 - December 1 trip, organised around talks with the spiritual head of Orthodox Christianity in Istanbul, has turned into an encounter with an Islamic world worried that he is rolling back decades of Catholic-Muslim dialogue.

"He should follow in the footsteps of his predecessor John Paul, who was against the theory of the clash of civilisations," Qari Hanif Jallundri, a senior official for a large network of madrasas (Koran schools) in Pakistan, said in a typical comment.

Cemal Usak, a Turkish Muslim active in inter-faith dialogue, noted Benedict had no real experience of Islam whereas Pope John XXIII spent a decade as a Vatican diplomat in Istanbul.

The once-Christian city has shown what it can do for popes it admires, naming a street after John XXIII and erecting a statue to Pope Benedict XV to honour his humanitarian work caring for Turkish troops wounded in the First World War.

What upsets Muslims is that Benedict pokes at some open wounds that divide Christianity and Islam while earlier popes looked past them to stress what unites the two faiths.

John Paul kissed a Koran and said Christians and Muslims prayed to the same God. Pope John, papal nuncio (ambassador) in Turkey from 1935 to 1944, used to say "I love the Turks!"

By contrast, Benedict opened his Regensburg speech by quoting a Byzantine emperor who argued that Islam was violent and irrational. The Pope went on to say true religion joins faith and reason, a link he implied that Islam lacked.

The speech triggered a wave of protest in the Muslim world. Benedict denied any insult to Islam and apologised for any misunderstanding, but did not retract his words.

For many Muslims, that threw dialogue back to square one.

"We have said from the beginning that the Pope should apologise for the insult he inflicted on Islam," said Mohammad Hussein, grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestinian territories.

"The hurt he caused Muslims is not going to be solved with such visits, even if he visited every single Muslim country," said Mohsen al-Awajy, a prominent Saudi preacher.

"Pope Benedict seems to have Islamophobic views, unlike Pope John Paul, who was much more tolerant," Elham Fathi, assistant editor of the widely read IslamOnline.net, said in Cairo.

Even Muslims keen on continuing a dialogue with the Vatican, such as Turkey's Usak or Algerian philosopher Mustapha Cherif, say Benedict has misunderstood Islam.

"I hope he's a fast learner," Usak said. Cherif, who met the Pope this month, called him "a man of dialogue" and added: "All we want is that he understands and doesn't repeat what he said."

One problem is that Benedict will speak not only to the world's 1,3-billion Muslims but also its two billion Christians, many of whom also worry about violence by radical Islamists.

"My readers were, for the most part, very supportive and pleased with what Benedict said in Regensburg," said Amy Welborn, who runs the popular US Catholic blog Open Book.

They also appreciated his call to Western Christians to reject a narrow, modern version of reason that he said shuts out faith and strips away the ethical foundations of society itself.

"They would like to see more Muslims have the same attitude toward their own faith, and particularly how that faith is lived out in the modern world," she said.


Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Riyadh, Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad, Talal Malik in Cairo and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah

[Modificato da benefan 24/11/2006 2.00]

Turkey: squad of 25 top guards to protect pope

The men were specially trained abroad. The precise itinerary and details of the papal visit will be made public only 48 hours before the arrival of Benedict XVI.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – A special squad of 25 top guards will keep watch over Benedict XVI during his visit to Turkey, set to take place from 28 November to 1 December.

The Zaman daily reported today that the Security Directorate “is working to prevent a possible breach in security” and has decided that a special team of 25 highly trained professionals will guard the pope. These guards had security training abroad and know foreign languages.

The security team will also be outfitted with concealed bullet-proof vests.

Also for security reasons, the precise itinerary and details of the trip of Benedict XVI have not been published and the Turkish foreign ministry will only be informed about the pope’s program 48 hours before his visit.

Over 6,000 police officers will be deployed in Istanbul and Ankara.

[Modificato da benefan 24/11/2006 2.08]

Maybe I am paranoid, but I find the tone of Tom Heneghan's article almost gleefully sadistic, emphasizing all the negative points - from the hostile and insulting to the downright condescending - that his Muslim critics can think of about Benedict, the Bogeyman of Islam!

Not to mention starting off by contrasting him with the Popes before him. Interesting that he doesn't include on his list Paul VI, the first Pope in modern times to visit Istanbul! Perhaps because he can't find an appropriately complimentary adjective to use for Paul? John Paul II is 'charismatic', John XXIII is 'kindly, Benedict XV is 'merciful'. What about a neutral but objective adjective like 'pioneering' for Paul? But at least mention him!

And what is Heneghan's adjective for Benedict XVI? In the first line of his article, he calls him Professor Ratzinger, not even Benedict XVI. Is that his way of saying that the Pope who will be going to Turkey is nothing more than Professor Ratzinger? With the implication that this was the man who gave a lecture in Regensburg that earned him the opprobrium of every Islamic militant adn those of their co-religionists whom they managed to agitate? Or is it Heneghan's way of saying he thinks this 'Profesor' will be going to Turkey to give yet another 'lecture' for whatever reason?

It may be a 'realistic' presentation of how things are - but how much is fact [apart from the statements attributed to the Pope's Muslim critics], and how much is facile generalization here? And how much of the journalistic mindset going into this trip is the Schadenfreude of those who never liked Joseph Ratzinger to begin with?

And of course, once again, even the religious editor of a major global news service expatiates on the papal trip without once mentioning the principal purpose of it - the ecumenical visit with the Orthodox Patriarch, and with other Christian prelates in Turkey!

You would think from all the preliminary articles coming out these days that Benedict was recklessly going to Turkey simply to aggravate Muslims - forgetting he does not have a choice, because unfortunately for the Christian world, Turkey happens to be the geographical site of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

He's not making a state visit, even if he is a visiting head of state, nor are the Turks giving him the honors he deserves as a visiting head of state. The political reality is that, in the midst of their bid to join the European Union, Turkey had to keep up apperances and could not very well deny him an invitation - even though it delayed giving it for one year - so he could visit Bartholomew I.

And Benedict thinks enough of the ecumenical goal not to 'mind' a series of slights to a head of state that is probably unprecedented in modern diplomacy. For the cause of Christian unity, he will walk through fire - in this case, the flames of bigotry and hatred (even if some mimic dialog) - as Francis of Assisi once was willing to do.

No one can think he has any illusions about how he will fare with the Muslims of Turkey. We don't have any illusions he's going to get any welcome from the Turks other than what their officials have to do for appearances, despite gritted teeth and animus in their hearts. In fact, we can only pray that snubs will be the worst of what he will get.

But can anyone doubt that he is going there with anything less than good will and good faith, and as anything less than the man of God that he is?

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/11/2006 15.44]

ISTANBUL, Turkey, Nov. 24 (AP) - Police in Istanbul will do their utmost to ensure no harm comes to the pope when he visits the city next week, their chief said.

Turkey is expecting large protests against Benedict XVI, who angered Muslims with recent comments about Islam and violence.

Police will not intervene in demonstrations if they remain peaceful but will do everything necessary to ensure the pope's safety, Istanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah said Thursday.

"If needed, we can call for reinforcements from nearby cities," Cerrah said.

A prosecutor, meanwhile, ordered the release of 39 Turkish nationalists a day after they briefly occupied Istanbul's Haghia Sophia to protest the papal visit, Benedict's first to a Muslim nation.

The prosecutor pressed no charges against the demonstrators.

Benedict is scheduled to tour the Haghia Sophia, one of the world's greatest churches for more than 1,000 years. It was converted into a mosque after Ottoman Turks conquered Istanbul in 1453. Today, the Haghia Sophia is a museum, and public religious ceremonies inside are forbidden.

===============================================================

TRANSLATION ALERT -
Joaquin Navarro-Valls has written an excellent editorial on the Pope's coming trip to Turkey in La Repubblica today. It is perhaps the first major article in the italian Press that makes it very clear this trip is first and foremost an ecumenical trip and that it has nothing to do with Islam, just like the visits by Paul VI and John Paul II in their time.

In fact, Navarro-Valls points out that Paul VI only mentioned Islam because he made a reference to Nostro Aetate, and that JP-II himself never once said the word Islam while he was in Turkey!

It is a lengthy, well-written and very informative editorial. I will post as soon as I can but I have to leave for work now...

This article appears to have been translated from the original story in AsiaNews' Italian service. It will explain the stilted language...

24 November, 2006
TURKEY – VATICAN
Indifference, antipathy
and scarce approval
as Turkey awaits Pope
by Mavi Zambak

Every day, the nationalist press looks for excuses to make it seem as if the papal visit is annoying even for those people who are not against it. According to a survey, only 10% of Turks approve the pope’s visit, 38% are decidedly against while another 38% are indifferent. And 14% preferred not to express their opinion. But now Erdogan says he will do all he can to meet Benedict XVI on 30 November.


Ankara (AsiaNews) – It is no secret that the Turkish people have little liking for Benedict XVI. The Turks, sorry to say, do not like Pope Ratzinger. And this is not only because of his speech delivered in Regensburg in mid-September.

Alongside the “religious problem”, there is persistent antipathy – concealed less and less – towards the man who, as cardinal, had pronounced a “harsh” opinion about Turkey and its bid to join Europe.

In this Muslim majority and nationalist country, the pope’s visit is annoying for both the people and the government, not least because it is clearly linked to an invitation from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and has a religious character.

So in the papers, there is a constant trickle of news aimed at undermining and defaming these two figures of the Christian world (who are depicted as a coalition against Islam and Turkey), provoking controversies and irritation even on the most minor issues.

So on one day, anger may be focused on the affront caused by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch who wanted to “set up a church” in the Hilton Hotel. This is just because there will be a press room in the hotel, as requested by Bartholomew I, with the possibility of watching on large screens the religious ceremonies due to take place in Istanbul on 30 November.

The following day, anger could shift against the Pope, who “refused” the invitation to the traditional State dinner offered by the Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer on 28 November. And attention is drawn to inconveniences that residents of Istanbul will have to put up with in those areas where the pope will go: access to their homes will be impeded and they will need a special police permit to park.

Once again, it is quirks bordering on the ridiculous and gossip about the pope’s vestments that are taking up space in newspapers, like the quest to understand why he has 33 buttons on his robe, why he wears red shoes and a gold ring.

But not much space is devoted to protest rallies against the visit of Ratzinger. {Really!?!?!?)

The more fanatical newspapers, like Vakit, last Sunday ran front-page appeals to cancel the invitation to a pope “who denigrated our prophet Muhammad and our Turkish nationality”, and today they again highlighted the pope’s refusal to attend the ceremonial dinner, ridiculing Benedict XVI who “does not allow himself earthly pleasures.”
{This is the first we are hearing about this. There isn't a ceremonial dinner on the schedule, and I don't think the Vatican ever contemplated it, even if it is usual protocol for a host chief of state to offer one for his guest.

Consider this: if there were a ceremonial dinner, it would have to take place on the evening of Nov. 28, the Pope's first day in Turkey and the only full day, more or less, in Ankara. After his meeting with the President in the early afternoon, shortly after he arrives, he will be meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, or whoever eventually represents Erdogan, or Erdogan himself who now says he will try to be there; then with Ali Bardakoglu, religious affairs person; and then the diplomatic corps. A state dinner would have to start at 7 p.m. at the earliest, or if they go by the universal protocol, at 8 p.m. It will be a long day for the Pope, who must be up early the following day to go to Ephesus. That is probably why such a dinner was never on the schedule, to begin with.]

But the newspapers failed to emphasize a move by around 100 militants of the Great Union (an extreme right party, close to the Grey Wolves), who dared to pray in the Santa Sofia museum to protest against the Pope.

Further, several rallies are being held by small faded groups that are going around Istanbul’s squares with printed placards and the usual slogan: “We don’t want the pope in Turkey”. Then there are those with strong overtones of protest against the role of the coalition of the two Christian religious leaders. “The Patriarch and the Pope are in Fanar. What have they got to do with the Turkish nation? We don’t want Benedict XVI among us.”

And a big rally, organized by the Happiness Party has been scheduled for next Sunday in Istanbul with the slogan: “The false and ignorant Pope is not welcome.”

As alarm levels are fast approaching the limit, the government now seems determined to pour oil on troubled waters.

In recent days, it transpired that not only would the Turkish premier, Tayyip Erdogan, be absent during the pope’s visit, other high-ranking government officials would also not be there to welcome the Holy Father.

The overseas commitments of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Abdullah Gul, were confirmed: Latvia for the NATO summit. The Religious Affairs Minister, Mehmet Aydin, is scheduled to be in Germany to participate in a bilateral Turkish-German summit and then in Holland for a meeting on integration with the Dutch minister. Even the mayor of Istanbul, Kadi Topbas, will not be present, as he is in Brussels.

And thus, since the ministers will all be absent, the welcome at the airport will be left to a woman, Oya Tuzcuoglu, director-general of protocol at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, with a very simplified ceremony compared to that reserved for heads of states.

However, yesterday there was a dramatic turn of events: a short article reported that, given the current state affairs, Prime Minister Erdogan would do his best to meet the Pontiff in Istanbul on 30 November, “to avoid giving the impression that he and his government want to escape from the Pope.”

And even Alì Bardakoglu, head of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate, who had been so enraged about the speech in Regensburg, has said he is willing to meet the Pope. [But a meeting with Bardakoglu was scheduled all along, and he never once said he didn't want to. Inf act, I think he welcomes the opportunity, perhaps to do some grandstanding, who knows?]

While reiterating that dialogue and encounter with Ratzinger did not mean sharing the same views and dogmas, he said he saw “this visit as a positive step for the development of respect and dialogue between members of different religions and cultures in the world. This meeting will be a positive step to construct a future on the path of peace.”

But what do people really think about this visit?

The latest surveys carried in Turkey’s main newspapers with nationwide coverage, reveal that only 10% of Turks approve the pope’s visit, 38% are decidedly against while another 38% are indifferent. And 14% preferred not to express their opinion.

However, even if they may not declare themselves to be hostile to the pope, people admit they are afraid something could happen. Despite constant assurances from police and security officials, many are not so sure that everything will go smoothly, and they fear unexpected hazards.

Mehmet Ali Solak, an Alevite, director of the “Guvey Ruzgari” (southern wind) magazine, admitted to fears that someone may seek to attempt to assassinate the Pope, or even just to create unrest to discredit Turkey, and to shift the blame onto the Turks.

Acknowledging that this was one reason why many would prefer Benedict XVI to stay at home, Solak echoed the views of a good part of the Turkish population (especially religious and ethnic minorities and also some Christians).

But there are also those who expect strong words of support from the Pope with regard to authentic freedom and democracy, against the Islamization that increasingly threatens to destroy the true secularism of the country.

Thus, the daily Sabah, an extreme right Kemalist, summed up its thinking in a front page cartoon depicting a blurred crowd of people appealing to the figure of the Pope, saying “You save us”.

Christians, meanwhile, have already grabbed all available tickets for liturgical ceremonies that the Pope will celebrate in Ephesus and Istanbul. There is no need for a special pass to go to Fanar (seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate) on the morning of 30 December, but a personal entry ticket is required for two Eucharistic celebrations, the first in Mary’s house in Ephesus on 29 November and the second at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul in the morning of 1 December.

The tickets were swept up especially by Catholics of the eastern rites: Armenians, Syrians, Chaldeans and Maronites, many of who are refugees from across the Middle East, especially Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and eastern Turkey.

They are deeply Catholic Churches that are much attached to the figure of the Pope. More than anyone else, it is they who are waiting for their Shepherd with great joy and devotion, to ask for words of comfort, encouragement and nearness from him.

[And this is the other aspect of the visit that most of the press ignores - how important it is for these Christians, few as they are, that the Pope comes to give them his spiritual support.]

They are also Churches that have long been ignored by the West, and it is important for them to be present when Benedict XVI visits, to show him all their affection and Catholicity.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/11/2006 15.18]

Turkish police appeal for restraint in Pope protests

By Selcuk Gokoluk

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police on Friday appealed for restraint at planned protests against
Pope Benedict's visit to the Muslim country next week, saying they could harm Turkey's image.

An Islamist party and some nationalist groups have vowed to stage street protests against the Pope, whose comments on Islam infuriated many Muslims worldwide in September.

"The eyes of the whole world will be on Turkey ... It is in the interests of Turkey that the Pope leaves here with a positive impression of our country," police spokesman Ismail Caliskan said.

"Reactions (to the visit) should not be taken to an extreme," he told a weekly news briefing.

On Wednesday, police detained 39 demonstrators who briefly occupied Istanbul's renowned Aya Sofya museum, a former church which Benedict is due to visit. The protesters, who had shouted anti-Pope slogans, were later released.

Caliskan confirmed increased security at the sites Benedict is scheduled to visit during his November 28-December 1 trip.

"The Pope will be as safe in Turkey as in the
Vatican," Egemen Bagis, a lawmaker from Turkey's ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, told Reuters in Istanbul this week.

MUSLIM FURY

Benedict angered Muslims in September by opening a speech in his native Germany by quoting a Byzantine emperor who argued that Islam was violent and irrational. He later expressed regret over the pain his remarks caused but stopped short of a full apology.

Before becoming Pope, Benedict annoyed Turks by speaking out against Turkey's bid to join the
European Union, saying it did not belong there because of its religion and culture.

Caliskan said some 750 extra policemen would be on duty in Istanbul, where the Pope is due to meet Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians.

Turkish nationalists often protest against Bartholomew, whom they see as a tool of ancient rival Greece and accuse of trying to set up a Vatican-style mini-state in Istanbul. The Patriarch denies the claims.

korazym.org has been doing excellent preparatory work for the Pope's visit to Turkey and they now have their team reporting from Turkey.

For some reason, they even scooped teh Italiam mainstream media for an advance view of an interviwe given by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to Bruno Vespa, host of the Italian RAI-1 public affairs perogram PORTA A PORTA. The interview airs tonight in Italy.

Here is a translation of the report written by Mattia Bianchi.

================================================================

"The Pope is welcome but he must respect us," said Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the interview with Bruno Vespa to be aired tonight.

[What a gratuitous statement! As if the Pope, of all people, does not know about elementary courtesy and respect. As if he would arrive in a foreign country where he is a guest and show disrespect to his hosts - or to anyone else, for that matter!]

The head of the Turkish government also wished to deny all speculation about his absence during Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey, saying "it would have been a pleasure for me to meet him."

"As you know," he explained, "the Pope is visiting at the invitation of teh President of the Republic. The Pope has two identities: political and spiritual. So he will be meeting his direct homologs in Turkey: the President of the Republic and the president for religious affairs .

"At that same time, there will be a NATO summit in Riga, at which I have to be present as Prime Minister, along with the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of defense.

"It would have been a pleasure for me to meet the Pope. I do not use double standards for anyone. I do not need to use any petty excuses. The world turns, there is much to be done. The Pope is coming to Turkey to carry out his own mission, and I have the duty to participate in the summit in Riga."

But he added that in the future, "if we should get an invitation to teh VAtican, we won't refuse because we are always ready to facilitate meetings among governments and states."

Asked about the post-Regensburg controversy, Erdogan pointed out that "We would never allow ourselves to insult the prophets of other religions. In fact, our faith requires us to respect them. It is therefore our right to expect the same treatment from the members of other religions. The Pope, as a political and religious personage, could have a most important role in replacing an atmosphere of war with one of peace."
[Criticism of tthe Pope is implicit in every word here, obviously.)

Erdogan was also asked about reforms in Turkey, especially on freedom of thought and of religion.

"We still have much to do," he said. "Legislatively, we have done what we must do, but we need a change of mentality. This raises difficulties for us but this government is determined to succeed. And we will succeed."

He concluded; "In my country, all the people are under our protection, whatever their creed. My government has three'red lines' [which must not be crossed]: No to ethnic nationalism (the Armenians?), no to regional nationalism (the Kurds?)and no to religious nationalism [but his party is Islamist!] We are succeeding and we are proceeding along the right course."
==============================================================

So, apparently, from what Erdogan says in this interview, a report elsewhere that he is considering how he may be able to be in Ankara for the Pope's visit is unfounded.