Religion: Words have consequences

Dispatch opinion | September 20, 2006

His appeal comes on the heels of widespread condemnation and outrage over last week’s speech where he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor on Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Speaking at the university in Germany where he began his career as an academic as Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict quoted Manuel II Paleologos: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The pope’s point was that religion and violence were incompatible. This, he did not clarify immediately.

The reaction from Muslims was instant – a furious response that included threats from al-Qaeda of attacks on the Vatican.

By Sunday, Benedict had apologised, saying that he was sorry for the reaction to his remarks.

“These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”

So, if quoting a 14th century emperor did not express his personal thought, why did Benedict utter these words?

Surely, at a time when Osama bin Laden has made it is his personal quest to destroy the infidels of the West and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are viewed as a direct attack on Islam, it would have been prudent for the pope to have thought of the likely consequences of his words?

And, surely, in the context of the extreme outrage and sensitivity about the recent publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, Benedict should have been advised to contextualise his remarks or steer clear of clever intellectual points?

If he had still been Joseph Ratzinger, a Catholic cardinal with academic leanings, the furore would have been insignificant.

But he is no longer the intellectual churchman who can get away with remarks such as calling Buddhism “masturbation of the mind” as he has once done.

When Ratzinger became pope last year after the death of John Paul II, he became the head of one of the world’s multinational organisations.

And that is the difference.

Popes do not make statements without consequences and this is what Benedict has just discovered.

In a world of deep schisms between Islam and Christianity, the Muslim world and the rest, it would have been prudent for Benedict to speak with caution.

Words do have consequences. An intellectual point made by an academic is just not the same as those uttered by the universal head of the Catholic Church.