Pope Benedict XVI and Interreligious Dialogue
Does the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI represent a change in interreligious dialogue? Is there a rupture from John Paul II? Is this pope really the mediator between the Homo Vaticanus and the Homo Tridentinus? To answer these questions, we need to look at the facts.
The very Church leader who endeavors to promote unity in the world is far from uniting all traditionalists. Some reproach him for pursuing the work of destruction begun by John Paul II. Others see in him a conservative who is connecting the new era with the past of the Church.
As an example, regarding the way in which Pope Benedict conceives and practices religious dialogue, some theologians believe that he is blazing a new path: the dialogue of gestures (e.g. the common prayer of Assisi) is now replaced by an intellectual confrontation, both vivid and difficult, which forces thinkers to come out of the shade and to address the heart of the problems. Hence, with the Rabbi of Rome, we may wonder whether “with this pope, dialogue has gone back 50 years in time.”
The Inheritance of Pope John Paul II
The Vatican II Declaration Nostra Aetate, on the Church and non-Christian religions, and the magisterium of John Paul II had already given the “theological” justifications for the overture of Catholicism to other religions. The largely mediatic pontificate of John Paul II contributed to accelerate the movement towards a broad dialogue. For instance, John Paul II turned the interreligious meeting of Assisi into a true color advertisement of a Catholic Church promoting the UN of religions. Other gestures no less scandalous are along the same lines of Assisi, like the visit of the pope to the Great Synagogue of Rome (April 1986) and his kissing the Koran (May 14, 1999). In so doing, the representative of the Catholic Church, for the sake of peace on earth, in the name of the rights of man and of the liberty of conscience, pretended to show the way to fanatic religious groups, hermetic to any other religion, and to invite them in this pacific approach. These deeds performed by the pope, with political and democratic connotations, were in fact inspired by a new dogma which runs implicitly in Redemptor Hominis: every man, as soon as he accepts his own humanity, is saved because “Humanity”—the abstract universal entity—has been saved by Christ.
The Inheritance of Pope Benedict XVI
Let us come to the new pope. First, as head of the Vatican State, whose authority is being daily corroded in the media before the constant assaults from the enemy, Benedict XVI plays the card of interreligious dialogue to promote the “common good” in States; that is, peace and liberty of conscience, even if this must be done at the price of the loss of souls in Catholic countries. The pope goes to the battlefront to defend modern democracy, founded on the Declaration of the Rights of Man—a conception quite foreign to the Beatitudes—as testified both by his debate with Juergen Habermas in Munich on January 19, 2004, and by his discourse to the UN on April 18, 2008. In the context of a secular and pluralist society, he proposes a consensus so as to obtain a universal recognition of the Rights of Man.
But Pope Benedict is also a theologian and the head of the Church. And, as such, there is room for us to wonder whether he is, in these ideas, fully the successor and heir to John Paul II. For this it is good to examine the attitude of Pope Benedict with regards to false religions. Let us limit ourselves to Judaism and Islam.
Benedict XVI and Judaism
What are the facts? On August 19, 2005, at the Synagogue of Cologne, the newly elected pope declared his will to walk in the footsteps of his predecessor in these terms: “The Catholic Church is committed...to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and religions.”
On October 26, 2005, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, he affirmed:
To the Great Rabbi of Rome, he addresses these words on January 16, 2006:
The Catholic Church is close and is a friend to you. Yes, we love you and we cannot but love you, because of the Fathers: through them you are very dear and beloved brothers to us (cf. Rom. 11:28b).
Moreover, no one has forgotten that, in February 2008, after the Motu Proprio “authorizing” the Tridentine Mass, Pope Benedict transformed the Good Friday prayer in the Missal. It used to evoke the “perfidis Judaeis” (unbelieving Jews) and asked that the veil blinding their heart be taken away from them. From now on, the pope makes the liturgy say the following: “May God Our Lord enlighten their hearts and make them recognize in Jesus Christ the Savior of all men.”
On May 9, 2009, Pope Benedict made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On Mount Nebo, he spoke of his “desire to overcome all obstacles to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews in mutual respect and cooperation in the service of that peace to which the word of God calls us!” To the Great Rabbinate of Jerusalem, he confessed:
Finally, on June 9, 2005, at the Vatican, he addressed the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consulations:
Benedict XVI and Islam
For Islam, as for post-Messianic Judaism, we shall let the facts speak for themselves.
On February 20, 2006, to the Moroccan Ambassador, Pope Benedict addressed these words: “to encourage peace and understanding between peoples and people, it is urgently necessary that religions and their symbols be respected.”
The media has largely covered the event of September 12, 2006, at the Regensburg University. On that day, the pope deplored forcefully any violence committed for religious purposes: God is the Word, the Logos, the first Reason. But reason is opposed to violence and human passions. He quoted particularly the Byzantine Emperor Manual II Paleologus: “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.” What great turmoil in the media! A few days after, during the General Audience of September 20, the pope explained himself regarding the Emperor’s quote:
On Easter Vigil of 2008, Pope Benedict performed another gesture which might be troublesome for Islamo-Christian dialogue: he baptized a convert from Islam to Catholicism, Madgi Allam, who is very hostile to Islam.
On the other hand, in May of 2009, during his visit to the Holy Land, the pope visited the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
To Expound Doctrine for the Sake of Truth
The facts which are here recorded could have been anticipated by anyone. On May 3, 2005, on the occasion of his election, Pope Benedict XVI, who could not have been unaware that his first words would be looked upon as his profound intentions for his future pontificate, declared: “The Church desires to continue building bridges of friendship with the faithful of all religions. Our efforts to meet each other and to promote the dialogue constitute a precious contribution to build peace upon solid foundations.”
Dialogue in view of friendship; friendship in view of peace in the framework of religious liberty: this is the mindset of Pope Benedict. On August 20, 2005, he found himself at Cologne in his own country and spoke his mind:
Respect for others, religious liberty, and dialogue involve listening to each other, but, the pope adds, it must always be in view of the truth. Thus, during his apostolic journey to the US, on April 17, 2008, in front of 200 representatives of other religions, he declared:
But what truth are we talking about? This is what he clarified on April 18, 2008, at the UN in New York:
The Pursuit of Dialogue
In the light of these deeds and words, we cannot but recognize that Pope Benedict, a personalist philosopher like John Paul II, and strongly involved in the Conciliar revolution, is proving himself to be his authentic successor in the principle of universal salvation, in the minimal conditions of salvation, in respect for other religions as such. In this, Benedict XVI continues in the straight line of John Paul II. Everything from his presence in synagogues and mosques, to his meetings and his speeches make of him the “impeccable” liberal portrait. This is true to the point that, during his trip to Israel, the friendly gesture of Pope Benedict towards Judaism (he deposited a prayer in the Wailing Wall) became at once a story in the Israeli newspapers, which used his wording for their own purposes.
Is another person hidden behind the mediatic portrait of the pope? Here is the whole question. It seems that Pope Benedict may not be as monolithic as John Paul II after all. Indeed, there are the strange sounds of bells which do not sound in unison with the Masonic hymn of fraternal charity. In private, the pope recalls some hard truths forgotten for centuries. During obscure colloquies, he reminds us of the good accomplished by Pius XII in favor of the persecuted Jews in Germany; he declares that the first purpose of dialogue is to affirm the Faith and that includes obviously the option of converting the listener. He borrows harsh but true words from the emperor who opposed the Muslim wave; he baptizes a Muslim with great publicity. It is not impossible that the pope might truly be a Nicodemus faithful to Christ, but under cover of night, and that he may be powerless and too scared of the risks of schism in the Church to initiate an all out public papal revolution.
Whatever the case may be, even in the most favorable hypothesis, the words and deeds are problematic. It is not the tiny signs of restoration which will outweigh the interreligious scandal begun by Vatican II, fortified by John Paul II and de facto pursued by Pope Benedict on the whole. Before the paradox inherent to interreligious dialogue, which oscillates dangerously between syncretism and proselytism, the distinction of “public versus private person” will be of little help to surmount the contradiction. We are dealing with a pope who cleans up his stables by getting rid of the ultra-heretical excesses, but nothing proves that this changes in any way the profound nature of interreligious dialogue.
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