"...in 1978 the Catholic church was in conflict with communism. That adversary has disappeared. Now the significant "other" - for Christianity in general as well as for Catholicism - is Islam."

Not so - Christianity has been the target of islam since the beginning. The only reason islam is patiently allowing Christians and Jews to practice under their strict Islamic state control (dhimmitude) is because of some verses in their Qur'an (which they take literally as the dictated word of Allah) tells them to respect the people of the book… their book may still contain some undistorted truths… they believe.

Let's not be naive about the other verses of the Qur'an that explicitly say that Islam is the last and true religion to replace all other religions ... by force if need be.

Jews are to be completely eliminated before the end times. The biggest insult to islam is in fact The State of Israel present in their midst on the land they have appropriated by force and claimed islamic... and yes F.H. old buddy Muslems have built a mosque over the historic Jewish temple.

Terrorism is on auto-pilot - all good jihadists need is a good dose of their own Qur'an.

No amount of dialogue or cease fire for that matter will make any difference to the mindset of Muslems because they MUST follow their religion and the example of their glorious prophet... aquire all "land" for Allah and Islam...

Wherever Islam is - war follows - until Islam is the conqueror - then all others are allowed to live in peace under their bloody thumbs.

So why should anyone apologise for their barbaric religion?

Muslems must wake up and see the lie they have been fed all these centuries and discover the true God.

May this month of ramadan be the catalyst for their enlightment.

BTW who would be the candidate for meaningful and reasonable dialogue with the Pontiff? Bin laden if he is still alive or the ayatollah of Iran?

Who is leading Muslems today – 80 years after the colapse of the ottoman empire?

Coach,

I was looking forward to a stimulating discussion thread but as always your comments comes as an intellectual turn off (to me at least).
My comment above is an attempt to analyse the Pope whole comment after reading his article. Specially his implied political comments.
Leave our HolyBook alone and enjoy yours.
Peace and may Ramadan be a blessed and enlightening month to you too.

T

GreenGrin (or Green_Grin) contd...

"The pope was trying to make the point that coercion of conscience is incompatible with genuine, reasoned faith. He used Islam as a symbol of the coercive demand for unreasoned faith.

"But he has been misled by the medieval polemic on which he depended.

"In fact, the Quran also urges reasoned faith and also forbids coercion in religion. The only violence urged in the Quran is in self-defense of the Muslim community against the attempts of the pagan Meccans to wipe it out.

"The pope says that in Islam, God is so transcendant that he is beyond reason and therefore cannot be expected to act reasonably. He contrasts this conception of God with that of the Gospel of John, where God is the Logos, the Reason inherent in the universe.

"But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu'tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them. The Mu'tazilite approach is still popular in Zaidism and in Twelver Shiism of the Iraqi and Iranian sort. The Ash'ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).

"As for the Quran, it constantly appeals to reason in knowing God, and in refuting idolatry and paganism, and asks, "do you not reason?" "do you not understand?" (a fala ta`qilun?)

"Of course, Christianity itself has a long history of imposing coerced faith on people, including on pagans in the late Roman Empire, who were forcibly converted. And then there were the episodes of the Crusades."

To be contd...

GreenGrin (or Green_Grin) contd...

"Another irony is that reasoned, scholastic Christianity has an important heritage from Islam itself. In the 10th century, there was little scholasticism in Christian theology. The influence of Muslim thinkers such as Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) reemphasized the use of Aristotle and Plato in Christian theology. Indeed, there was a point where Christian theologians in Paris had divided into partisans of Averroes or of Avicenna, and they conducted vigorous polemics with one another.

"Finally, that Byzantine emperor that the Pope quoted, Manuel II? The Byzantines had been weakened by Latin predations during the fourth Crusade, so it was in a way Rome that had sought coercion first. And, he ended his days as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.

"The Pope was wrong on the facts."

http://www.juancole.com/2006/09/pope-gets-it-wrong-on-islam-pope.html