The Heart of the Dilemma

From Violence, Truth, and the Perfection of Allah -- Pope Benedict's Dilemma by agnusdei:

More than this, the Pope has a deep appreciation for the fact that the entire culture of Muslims is saturated in faith and devotion to God. In that sense, Muslim society -- Muslim culture -- resembles the Church, or at least -- a church. A community of people that follows God shares in the perfection of God. And this is the heart of the dilemma of the Pope's speech at Regensberg.

Pope Benedict, with his enormous grasp of the history of the Church, went all the way back to the 12th century, to a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim, to raise the issue of violence in the supposed adherence to God. The conversation was about the differences between Christianity and Islam, but Pope Benedict was interested in one aspect in particular. In honing in on the part of the conversation dealing with violence, the Pope honed in on the very question with which he, as Cardinal, had previously grappled: can a religion steeped in God act wrongly? ....

What is really unfortunate isn't that Pope Benedict reached back to a flawed and bigoted 12th century conversation in order to have a context for speaking about religious violence today. What is unfortunate is that he had to. For centuries, the West refused to talk to Islam at all, because we didn't share the same faith. Now, we've lost even the ability to talk to Islam, and we've lost that ability because we don't share a belief in faith itself -- a belief that is central to Islamic culture. Unless we reclaim the ability to talk about faith without sneering, we will insult Muslims at the very core of their culture, at the very core of their existence. In that state of insult, there can be no peace.

What Pope Benedict is saying, is this: It is the insistence that faith has no part in a modern and rational world, that is the hobgoblin of little minds.