c. 2006 Religion News Service
ROME _ In his first meeting with Muslim leaders since making controversial remarks on Islam, Pope Benedict XVI renewed his rejection of religiously motivated violence on Monday (Sept. 25) and appealed to leaders of both faiths to promote religious tolerance.
The meeting was the latest chapter of the pontiff’s ongoing campaign to advance “frank and sincere dialogue” between Christians and Muslims while seeking to quell the anger from his use of a medieval text that called the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad “evil and inhuman.”
“Christians and Muslims must learn to work together,” Benedict said at the papal summer palace in Castel Gandolfo, “in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence.”
Benedict spoke Monday to an audience of local Muslim clerics and ambassadors representing 22 countries with predominantly Muslim populations. The format of the encounter, arranged in the wake of violent protest over Benedict’s remarks at the University of Regensburg in Germany, did not allow for a response from the Muslim representatives.
Benedict said he hoped relations between the faiths “will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue.” He underscored, however, that future attempts at dialogue must be “based on ever more authentic reciprocal knowledge” that “recognizes the religious values that we have in common and, with loyalty, respects the differences.”
During his controversial speech at the University of Regensburg, Benedict drew a sharp distinction between Christianity’s and Islam’s relationship with reason. The Christian embrace of reason, he said, made its rejection of violence inherent.
Benedict did not, however, say whether the same was true for Islam. Instead, he quoted a book documenting Emperor Manuel Paleologos II, a 14th-century Christian Byzantine ruler, that criticized Muhammad’s “command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” He then quoted the book’s editor, saying that, in Islam, “God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”
“The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature,” Benedict concluded.
Numerous Muslim clerics have denounced the pope’s comments and questioned his plans to visit Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, in November.
Churches were firebombed in the West Bank, threats were issued from terrorist groups, and a nun was gunned down in Somalia hours after a local cleric instructed Muslims to “hunt down” the pontiff and kill anyone who offends Muhammad.
Benedict issued a rare apology during his regular Sunday address Sept. 17, saying he was “deeply sorry” for the reaction he provoked. Many Muslim leaders, however, said the gesture did not clarify whether the pontiff actually regretted making his remarks. Benedict has since rebuffed calls to issue a second apology.
The Rev. Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, president of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, a Vatican think tank, said the pope’s comments Monday aimed to “build a common platform” between Muslims and Christians to reject religiously motivated violence.
“Above all, the speech expressed the need for all of humanity to respect the human person,” Ayuso Guixot said.
KRE/PH END MEICHTRY
