East Will Meet West in Pope’s Delicate Visit to Turkey

c. 2006 Religion News Service ISTANBUL, Turkey _ In the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Spirit here, a bronze statue stands in honor of a Roman Catholic pontiff by the name of Benedict: “The benefactor of all people, irrespective of nationality or religion,” a placard near the statue reads. Apart from the name, […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

ISTANBUL, Turkey _ In the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Spirit here, a bronze statue stands in honor of a Roman Catholic pontiff by the name of Benedict: “The benefactor of all people, irrespective of nationality or religion,” a placard near the statue reads.

Apart from the name, the statue bears no resemblance to Pope Benedict XVI, who enraged devout Muslims around the world with his remarks on Islam during a September speech in Germany. The statue was erected, rather, as a tribute to Pope Benedict XV, a renowned peacemaker who failed to prevent Europe from sliding into the chaos of World War I.


Like his predecessor, however, Benedict finds himself at the center of a potentially epochal clash _ an ideological struggle that pits East against West, Muslim against Christian. Next week (Nov. 28-Dec. 1) the pope will make his first trip outside Europe, to Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation that maintains increasingly fragile relations with the Roman Catholic leader.

Turkish leaders were among the first to decry Benedict’s controversial speech, in which he quoted a Christian medieval ruler describing the teachings of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman” and “spread by the sword.” One of the first stops on Benedict’s Turkish tour will be the country’s Ministry of Religious Affairs to further clarify his views on Islam.

“Most (Turks) thought that Pope Benedict showed his hatred and his militant approach to Muslims, an approach stemming from a medieval crusade mentality,” said Aydin Topaloglu, a Muslim philosophy professor at the Center for Islamic Studies, a think tank in the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Many Turks still have fresh memories of comments Benedict made as a cardinal in 2004, when he opposed Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, saying the country’s religious and cultural identity put it in “permanent contrast” with Christian Europe.

More recently, Benedict has made clear that he intends to push for “sincere and frank” relations with Muslim leaders that bypass the conciliatory gestures embraced by the late Pope John Paul II.

At the center of Benedict’s policy shift, church officials say, lies a desire to see the rights guaranteed to Muslims living in the West extended to Christians living in the Muslim world. Even in Turkey, an officially secular country, strains of religious discrimination are present.

“We are forced to face this issue in a more substantial and forceful way,” said Bishop Luigi Padovese, the church’s top prelate in Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor. “It’s a question of survival.” In February, one of Padovese’s priests was gunned down while praying in a parish in Trabzon, a city on the coast of the Black Sea.


Although Benedict is under pressure to make overtures to Turkey’s Muslims, relations with Islam are not the primary focus of his visit. Officially, Benedict will visit Turkey to meet Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul. Bartholomew, whose church predates the founding of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, is the source of intense public scrutiny in Turkey.

He is regularly accused in the media of trying to establish an Eastern Orthodox enclave in Turkey modeled after Vatican City. Benedict’s main objective will be to lend support to the country’s beleaguered Christian minorities, including non-Catholics, Padovese said.

The visit could also embolden scores of Turkish Christians to profess their faith more openly. “This is a good chance for us because we can explain our theology,” says Firat Tuncel, a 26-year-old airline worker who converted to Catholicism from Islam.

Tuncel, who converted after studying in Germany three years ago, admits he has not officially declared the change to authorities. The national identification card he carries currently defines his religious status as Muslim.

“There is strong psychological pressure,” he says. “You can be unemployed for years and be treated as a second-class citizen in society, simply because your official I.D. has `Christian’ written on it.”

Nevertheless, Tuncel plans to attend a Mass that Benedict will celebrate at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit on Nov. 30.


While Benedict has kicked off past foreign trips by parading through town in the popemobile and pressing flesh with the faithful at outdoor Masses, he will keep a lower public profile in Turkey. The visit is expected to take place under security measures that rival those put in place when President Bush visited Turkey for a NATO summit in 2004.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot John Paul in St. Peter’s Square in 1981, recently warned Benedict not to make the trip. Agca, who is currently in prison, told the pope in a statement conveyed to the Associated Press, “As a man who knows these things, I am saying that your life is in danger, don’t come to Turkey.”

Even Catholics will have trouble seeing the pontiff in person. Invitations to attend the cathedral Mass, for example, were distributed through local parishes, which are carefully screening their members.

The security measures, says the Rev. Felice Morandi, the cathedral’s vicar, has made it impossible to meet even the demands of a small Catholic community like Turkey’s.

“Twenty thousand people would like to come,” Morandi said, “but there is only room for 1,000.”

(Scott Rank reported from Istanbul; Stacy Meichtry reported from Rome)

KRE END RANK/MEICHTRY

Editors: To obtain photos of Bartholomew and a meeting of Bartholomew and the pope, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.


See related story, RNS-POPE-ORTHODOX, also transmitted Nov. 21.

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