The pope’s apology, and the Muslim world’s sorry behavior

Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn,
professor of political science at Kean University in Union

During this penitential season Jews all over the world seek forgiveness from God for the sins they have committed in violating God’s commandments. Jewish tradition has it, however, that if one commits a transgression against another human being, you must ask personally for forgiveness from that individual, as often as three times. If the person refuses these three petitions, you are in effect absolved from your religious obligation to ask for forgiveness from that person.Apparently, the world’s Muslims were not yet ready to accept the petitions for forgiveness offered by both the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI for his utterances about Islam. Having asked them three times to be forgiven for his statements, it would seem that the pope understood as well that he did not have to do so again at his audience with the Muslims Monday in Castel Gandolfo.

Admittedly, the pope’s references in his recent speech were inappropriate and insensitive toward Muslims. The speech cited a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who referred to Muslims as “evil and inhumane” and seeking “to spread by the sword the faith [Muhammad] preached.” The quotation from Emperor Manuel II Paleologus was part of a religious exchange between the emperor and a well-educated Persian. It was a major entry into the theological debate at the time over the place of reason and rationalism in Catholic Church thinking. It occurred just as the church itself was considering how to cope with the religious crisis of the late Middle Ages. The text referenced by Benedict was actually part of a larger attack on those seeking to change the direction of the church. Much of the reporting on the pope’s speech, and the subsequent reaction in the Muslim world, failed to address the context of the speech, which sought to bring his own contemporary theological thinking into consideration of this classical church debate.

However justified their annoyance, the response in the Islamic world was totally out of proportion. As they did after the publication of the Danish cartoons, Muslim clerics and political leaders fueled their followers to riot, attack Catholic churches, and denounce and even threaten harm to the pope and the Catholic Church. (In some Islamic circles, once again it was the Jews who were blamed for inciting the Vatican to attack Muslims.)

The meeting with the representatives from Muslim countries accredited to the Holy See as well as Italian Islamic clerics was not another form of papal apology. It did, however, seek to reengage Muslim clerics in dialogue with the church. It remains to be seen how this papal audience of reconciliation plays out in the mosques when the Muslim clerics react to it this week at the first Friday prayers during Ramadan.

These two instances demonstrate how far apart Islam is from the West in its conduct and reaction to rhetorical attacks. It also showed how marginal are the Islamic voices of tolerance and moderation. It brought home the realization that it is by no means exclusively the Arab-Israeli conflict and/or the treatment of the Palestinians that is the source of Muslim rage and terror against elements of Western culture and civilization.

There is an ironic sidebar to this story for Jews watching from the sidelines. First, Jews hoped that perhaps the world, witnessing the incomprehensible reactions of the Muslim world, might join them in denouncing repeated Muslim attacks and incitement against Jews.

Second, the nature of the Catholic Church’s response to the outrage in the Muslim world was eye opening. While the Vatican fell all over itself in apologizing to Muslims, Jews remember that it took the church almost 2,000 years for it to reach a conclusive decision that Jews were not responsible for the killing of Christ. That change occurred only after years of painful dialogue, and a genocide that demonstrated the logical extremes of the deicide charge.

Perhaps the sick lesson to be learned from the Vatican’s latest apology is that in order to get a response from the Catholic authorities, threats and violence trump dialogue.