Pope Benedict XVI’s conference in Regensburg, Germany, was made in the spirit of academic debate, where there is plenty of freedom for discussion Luís Corrêa Lima

Luís Corrêa Lima

 

Against Mohammed? Rio – Fire, smoke and destruction. These are some of the consequences of the Pope’s conference at Regensburg University in Germany, where he taught for many years. Benedict XVI lecturing about the relationship between faith and reason and quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. In 1391, a little before the long siege of Constantinople by the Turks, Manuel Ii had a dialogue with a Persian scholar. And he declared: “show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” After this vehement statement, the emperor explains that spreading the faith by violence is irrational. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul: “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God´s nature”. After the quotation the Pope developed brilliantly the argument that acting against reason is contrary to God’s nature. And he traveled through the intellectual history of the West, from the New Testament to our days. After the Islamic protests Benedict XVI explained that he had no intention of endorsing Manuel II’s negative opinion about Mohammed, but to endorse his positive opinion about rationality in the transmission of faith. The Pope wanted to explain that religion is not linked to violence, but to reason. Some saw in Benedict XVI’s conference a politically incorrect speech about the temptation of the use of violence by the Islam, a speech made in a particularly delicate moment of international affairs. But it doesn’t seem to have been the Pope’s intention to deal with Muslim violence, moreover because Manuel II’s opinion about Mohammed is quite wrong. The Catholic Church sees Islam differently, as the II Vatican Council declared. And Ratzinger himself, some years ago, made a subtle analysis of the matter, pointing at the same time to the values in Islamic faith and the tensions with the West. The Regensburg conference was made in the spirit of academic debate, where there is plenty of freedom for discussion. At the beginning the Pope referred to the universe of sciences that make up the University, forming a comprising universe. The institution was proud of its two theology faculties. But he remembered once when a teacher declared that these faculties were occupied by something inexistent: God. To speak out one’s disbelief is inherent to academic freedom Now, the alleged inexistence of God is far more serious for all believers than the evilness attributed to Mohammed. In both cases, it doesn’t mean that the Pope agrees with their contents. In the case of Mohammed, nevertheless, due to the sensitivity of the Islamic world, the clarification he made later would have been significant in the same speech, that or either erase the phrase. In any case nothing justifies the attacks and burning of Christian temples in Palestine. The same reason is given for the assassination of Sister Leonella Sgorbati, a Consolata missionary in Somalia. Her religious congregation, though, does not believe there is any relation between Benedict XVI’s words and that murder. The open and sincere debate conducted by the Pope is even a good thing for the Church and for the dialogue with the modern world. He is the first Pontifice to quote Nietzsche in an encyclical, in a respectful dialogue with the positions of the philosopher. The criticism of irrationality is also beneficial within the Church. It can liberate us from certainties that come about too fast and from dogmatism, where the argument of authority is enough to presume to hold all the truth and all the goodness. It purifies us from moralism, from moral judgment without the necessary differentiation and the timely dialogue with sciences. And much more... The Pope is on the right track. All that is needed is a little care. It isn’t against Mohammed, but against irrationality.
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Luís Corrêa Lima, S.J. Historian .