Islam Controversy Update

B16_2It’s always interesting when you read two different, allegedly objective news stories and come away with contrary impressions of the state of the facts.

Take THIS ONE and THIS ONE as examples.

Both are covering the current controversy regarding Pope Benedict’s remarks on Islam, but they convey significantly different impressions of the state of things.

For example, the first article–by Reuters–has this hopeful note:

One of the few signs that the crisis may have peaked came from Iran’s hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who told NBC television in New York that now that the Pope has taken back his statement "there is no problem."

That makes it sound like the controversy may have peaked, and it is a quite significant thing when a hate-inflamer like Ahmadinejad is saying that there is no problem. That sounds like a signal that he will not be using his government-controlled hate press to further inflame passion on this the way he did with the Danish cartoons.

But the second article–by The Evening Standard–conveys a different impression:

Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis.

That makes it sound like the controversy is still building.

Admittedly, these matters are subjective and hard to gauge–but then THAT’S THE POINT, isn’t it? Unless the pieces are clearly labelled as opinion or analysis then they’re supposed to be objectively sticking ot the facts–or so the MSM would have us believe.

Then there’s another matter where the two pieces convey a different impression of the facts, and here the contrast between the two news services is reversed. According to Reuters,

In Turkey, Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to kill Pope John Paul in 1981, warned Benedict not to make a planned visit to the country in late November, saying his life would be in danger.

"As someone who knows these matters well, I say your life is in danger. Don’t come to Turkey," Agca, who is serving a sentence for the killing of a newspaper editor in the 1970s, said in comments released in a statement by his lawyer.

From this one would think that Mehmet Ali Agca is sincerely concerned about Pope Benedict’s wellbeing (which he may indeed be) and issuing what could be sound advice (and it may indeed be) based on being an apparently sane and balanced individual with a realistic view of things, whatever his past crimes may have been.

In fact, Mehmet Ali Agca is a dangerously unbalanced fantasy-prone individual who regularly makes wild, non-reality-based statements that apparently come from his own delusional inner life.

While The Evening Standard doesn’t make as blunt (and as evaluative) a statement as I just did, it does at least report the facts in a way that allows the reader to infer what a crazyman Agca is:

In his two page letter to leading Italian Rome based daily La Repubblica, Agca, who was a member of the Turkish terrorist cell the White Wolves, wrote: "Pope Ratzinger listen to someone who knows these things very well.

"Your life is in danger. You absolutely must not come to Turkey. Pope Benedict you must know that between 1980 and 2000 I was in contact with various Western intelligence services and with the Vatican.

"In those twenty tears I learnt many things and I came into possession of many classified secrets."

The letter closed with Agca imploring Pope Benedict to resign for his own safety he wrote: "For your own welfare you must make a grand gesture of honour and resign.

"Then you must return to your native land (Germany) and in your place an Italian cardinal can be elected Pope, possibly (cardinal Dionigi) Tettamanzi or (cardinal Tarcisio) Bertone.

"Then the Vatican should become a centre of peace and fraternity. The world has a need of this it does not need hatred and vendetta."

While it’s praiseworthy that The Evening Standard reported the facts regarding Agca’s current letter more fully and thus put the reader into a better position to evaluate the sanity of the man, it was still writing the piece according to a scare script, pouring the story into a pre-formed mold and to my mind still constitutes shallow reporting since Agca has repeatedly said totally bizarre things and the reader is not informed of this fact.

If it was going to make Agca the centerpiece of its story, it at least should have interviewed someone who could offer an assessment of the reliability of the man.

For example, shortly before the death of John Paul II he gave an interview with La Repubblica, in which he asserted:

In the 1980’s, certain Vatican supporters believed that I was the new messiah and to free me they organized all the intrigue about Emanuela Orlandi and the other incidents they won’t reveal" [SOURCE].

Meanwhile, the Vatican Information Service released the following text from Pope Benedict’s Wednesday audience concerning his speech at the University of Regensburg:

"I chose the theme," he said, "of the relationship between faith and reason. In order to introduce my audience to the dramatic nature and current importance of the subject, I quoted some words from a Christian-Muslim dialogue from the 14th century in which the Christian – the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus – presented to his Muslim interlocutor, in a manner we find incomprehensibly brusque, the problem of the relationship between faith and violence.

"This quotation, unfortunately, has lent itself to misunderstandings. However, to an attentive reader of my text it is clear that in no way did I wish to make my own the negative words pronounced by the medieval emperor, and that their polemical content does not express my personal convictions. My intentions were quite otherwise: on the basis of what Manuel II subsequently said in a positive sense … concerning the reason that must guide us in transmitting the faith, I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason, go together.

"The theme of my talk was, then, the relationship between faith and reason," he added. "I wished to call for a dialogue of the Christian faith with the modern world and for dialogue between all cultures and religions. I hope that at various moments of my visit – when, for example, in Munich I underlined how it important it is to respect what is sacred for others – what emerged was my deep respect for all the great religions, and in particular for Muslims who ‘worship the one God,’ and with whom we are committed to promoting ‘peace, liberty, social justice and moral values for the benefit of all humanity.’

"I trust, therefore, that following the initial reactions, my words at the University of Regensburg may constitute an impulse and encouragement towards positive, even self-critical, dialogue both among religions and between modern reason and Christian faith" [SOURCE].

Regarding the Wednesday audience, the Reuters piece noted this significant fact:

[A]s is customary, the Pope still was driven among the crowd standing on the back of an open jeep as it passed among tens of thousands of people in the square.

Which is one of the reasons I say B16 isn’t afraid to be martyred.

Despite what happened in that same square when Mehmet Ali Agca–a Muslim–tried to kill John Paul II, and despite the imminent reasonability of using a bullet-proof popemobile for security purposes, one of the first things B16 did in office was return to the practice of using an open vehicle–a clear signal that he is willing to accept the risks that this entails in order to be more accessible to those he is trying to serve.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

12 thoughts on “Islam Controversy Update”

  1. acga really is one of my favorite characters in the show that is the Vatican. He’ll say or do anything to be noticed.
    ridiculous.

  2. Yes and the comment about resigning so an Italian (Tettamanzi?????) can be elected and then there will be peace sounds like it came from some of the offices in the Roamn Curia.

  3. Placing himself in an open vehicle says not only is our Pope willing to be martyred, but more generally that he places his full trust in the Lord as his Father and Protector. The same can be said about his comments in Regensburg.
    Speaking of placing oneself in the hands of the Lord, or in this instance the intentional lack thereof, did anyone see the new CBS series “Jericho” last night? Real interesting concept…but totally missing the natural turning to God in the face of enormous crisis piece. My recollection is that right after 911, churches were packed to capacity, almost to revival type proportions in some places.
    I was a bit disappointed Jericho didn’t make a bit more of a statement about the upwelling of faith and prayer that certainly would have occurred in the midst of a suprise attack involving suspected nuclear terrorism. Another opportunity missed I guess.
    Peace,
    John

  4. Tomorrow is supposed to be some kind of Muslim “Day of Rage” over all this.
    I suggest that we in the West make tomorrow our own “Day of Sarcasm”.
    Jeer, mock, scorn… what have you.
    I’m bored with their Protest of the Week. What a bunch of babies.

  5. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t JPII still use the open vehicle in St. Peter’s Square (they just upped the security around the area).

  6. BBC, NY Times and Guardian Appear to Have Stage-Managed Muslim Anti-Pope Hatred
    Ratzinger, now Benedict, has been favorite Catholic target of liberal media for years
    by Hilary White
    LONDON, September 18, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The international furor over the Pope’s comments at Regensburg last week appears to have begun through a series of carefully stage-managed media reports
    Tracing the media coverage from the day of the Pope’s speech in Regensburg, Germany, a distinct shift in approach, what media analysts call a “meme,” of “Islamic outrage”, is clearly traceable starting with the BBC’s coverage three days later.
    The day after the speech, Wednesday the 13th, the Pope’s lecture elicited little response from apparently bored secular journalists who had little interest in what was considered his “obscure” and “academic” points on the relationship between religious belief and the secular world.
    Catholic news sources who reported the day after the lecture were also quiet. “Pope spends quiet afternoon at home with brother,” was the leading headline at Catholic World Report.
    On Thursday the 14th, however, under the headline “Pope’s speech stirs Muslim anger,” the BBC began with a report that police in Kashmir had seized newspapers carrying coverage of the pope’s speech in order “to prevent tension.” The BBC’s coverage did not include any quote from the Indian-administered Kashmiri police force.
    The BBC’s September 14th report was transmitted around the world in Arabic, Turkish, Farsi (the language of Iran), Urdu, the official language of Pakistan; and Malay. The next day, the anticipated furor had became a reality.
    Immediately after the appearance of the first BBC coverage, the Pakistani parliament issued a declaration condemning Benedict’s speech and demanding an apology.
    Later the same day, the BBC published, under the headline, “Muslim anger grows at Pope speech” a report on the Pakistan government’s reaction. It quoted the head of the Islamic extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, saying “the Pope’s remarks ‘aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world’.
    The same day, the Guardian, following the BBC’s lead, ran the headline, “Muslim anger builds over Pope’s speech.” From that moment, the internet was flooded with reportage from around the world on the Pope’s alleged “attack” on Islam and the predicted response from Islamic groups began.
    On the 13th, the New York Times, focusing on the Pope’s critique of Western secularism ran the headline, “The Pope Assails Secularism, with a Note on Jihad.” The report contained no hint of their later demands for papal apologies.
    Ian Fisher wrote, “Several experts on the Catholic Church and Islam agreed that the speech — in which Benedict made clear he was quoting other sources on Islam — did not appear to be a major statement on, or condemnation of, Islam.”
    By the weekend, however, the New York Times had dropped its examination of the content and intention of the pope’s lecture, and joined the chorus of demands for apologies in its editorial.
    The BBC continued stirring the pot on the 15th, with commentary from their religious affairs correspondent, Rahul Tandon, who wrote darkly that the former Cardinal Ratzinger had “appeared to be uncomfortable with Pope John Paul II’s attempts to improve dialogue with the Islamic world.”
    Benedict’s unpopularity with the secularist mainstream media is legendary. Since before his election as Pope, Joseph Ratzinger had been for years the secularist and leftist media’s favorite Catholic target. Led by the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times, media editorials had long since dubbed him “The Rottweiler” and the “Panzer Cardinal,” for his defences of Catholic doctrine, particularly on abortion and contraception.
    Thousands of stories and editorials are appearing online – with no sign of slowing – carrying headlines such as that from Australia’s The Age: “‘Rottweiler’ bares teeth.” The Guardian today has issued an editorial headlined, “An Insufficient Apology,” featuring the familiar secularist accusations against the Catholic Church’s past.
    On Sunday, Toronto-based columnist, David Warren, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen on the media-instigated uproar that has led to retaliatory attacks in Israel against Christian churches and clergy and the murder of a nun in Somalia.
    By manipulating the event, Warren says, the BBC was “having a little mischief. The kind of mischief that is likely to end with Catholic priests and faithful butchered around the Muslim world.”
    Warren wrote, “The BBC appears to have been quickest off the mark, to send around the world in many languages…word that the Pope had insulted the Prophet of Islam, during an address in Bavaria.”
    While the pope, Warren said, was not offering a “crude anti-Islamic polemic,” the content of the Pope’s speech, and his key questions in the dialogue between religions and the secular world, will now be ignored.
    Warren pointed to coverage by Rahul Tandon who implied that, since his election as Pope, though Benedict has “surprised many with his attempts to improve dialogue with the Muslim world…,there have been signs of his earlier views.” These Tandon identified as “theological conservatism.”
    “From now on,” Warren writes, “the reporting will be about the Muslim rage, and whether the Vatican has apologized yet. That is the “drama” the media will seek to capture — the drama of the cockfight — because they know no better kind.”
    Read Rahul Tandon’s BBC commentary:
    Pope Benedict XVI and Islam
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5349808.stm
    Read the New York Times coverage from Ian Fisher:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/world/europe/13pope.html
    Read Commentary by David Warren:
    http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/
    Read the text of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg speech:
    http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06091802.html

  7. Every aspect of the work of the Secularists and the Muslims is undiluted cowardice. Every reaction on the part of the pope is a work of unmitigated courage and love.
    So much of these events reminds me of the martyrdom of St. Thomas More.
    If anything, more people can see clearly how apostates in the West and infidels in the East have decided to lay siege to the Holy City.

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