Benedict’s timeless touch noble, but tricky

Unfortunately, what the pope does not seem to understand is that when he makes these "public relations gaffes", no matter what he personally believes, how personally holy he is,or how doctrinally correct his statements may be, is that he marginalizes the papacy, and by extension, the Church. If we, as the Church, are to engage the modern world, whether to successfully evangelize or create a culture of life, or have any effect on it whatsoever, people will have to believe that we are worth listening to, and that we have something worthwhile to say. That's not going to happen if the pope keeps offending everyone he addresses. The result will be, and unfortunately is, that because people are offended by the messenger, they turn off the message.

Mr Allen: this is a very nice piece of work. It is insightful. Thanks for showing sympathy for the Pope. Another consideration: the implications of Benedict's reading of Biblical texts (Lamentations etc). What he has done, as Pope, is to give a Jewish reading of the Bible in Jerusalem with the Holocaust in mind. I don't think that there could be a more profound statement of the significance of Judaism for the Church than this. Isn't this B16's ANSWER to the history of Christian anti-semitism? IMO this is, in the long term, more convincing and instructive than an 'apology'. It makes theological sense, rather than PR points.

Today’s Times, in common with several other papers, says the Pope “walked out” of an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem yesterday when a Muslim cleric made an overtly political speech about the Israel/Palestinians issue, in terms that were abusive of their Israeli hosts.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6273220.ece

But did the Pope really “walk out”? The Israeli papers say he sat through the speech to the end, then accepted the Muslim cleric’s handshake, and only then left the room. He sat silently through the ten-minute speech (Jerusalem Post) or six-minute speech (Haaretz), not understanding it, because there was no simultaneous translation and the text had not been circulated beforehand. But the Holy See's Secretary for Relations with States, equivalent to Foreign Minister, who must presumably have been right there in the room, is Dominique Mamberti, a French priest, said to be an Arabic speaker: he was born and brought up in Marrakesh where his parents were French settlers. Why did Mamberti fail to tip off the Pope about the contents of the speech while the cleric was still talking?

Frankly I'm sick of everyone constantly attacking the Pope and these so called gaffes. He says "six million" at the airport and then gets attacked for saying "millions" and killed instead of murdered. He will never satisfy some of these people and I for one am glad he doesn't try. I watched the ceremony and his speech and thougth it was beautiful, a meditation for a quiet religious spot. We, and by this I mean journalists, give far too much space to these people who parse every word to see how they can be hurt by it. Enough is enough.

I am beginning to wonder if there is any way to satisfy Jewish critics of the Pope. I am fascinated that people who stand outside of Catholicism place such weight on the words of the Pope that his comments are parsed so minutely that there does not seem to be any way to satisfy anyone.

While this pope has certainly made some grievous errors of communication, I would like to point to the continuing Catholic-Jewish collaboration that takes place at every level of church life. To me that is far more important that if the pope pronounced on the Holocaust in precisely the words some search for.

The Pope speaks from the heart and speaks the truth. His focus is long term - he seems comfortable speaking and acting in a way to help bring peace for generations to come.

Do you realize why many people today are indifferent to Israel and the Holocaust? The Jews want everybody to bend their kness at their suffering. Many people over the centuries have suffered. What apalls me is that the Jews are making a big deal over words (as they did at an Aushwitz commemoration years ago). First of all is the complaint that the Pope said "killed", not "murdered." Next he said "millions", instead of "six million." Do you understand why many people in the world get tired of the Jews" refusal to move on with life. Sorry, but other people suferred (think Palestinians). They don't quibble over words.

I apologize for the victims of the horrific crime against the Jews, but The Jews, especially of Israel tire me and turn me off.

The left side of the aisle embraces a philosophy that it is the Pope Benedict's responsibility to continually communicate self-flageration. They align themselves with anti-Catholics who are never satisfied with a true Catholic Pope. John, clever wordsmith that you are does not hide your submission to the NCR agenda.

Being one who finds this pope trying to make the church go backwards and more obedient which I disagree with, I never-the-less agree with keeping the timeless and universal theme to these horrors. The jews have slaughtered people in their past and in their present. They are not free of the taint of this evil. Christians were killed in like number by Hitler; acknowledging only the jews changes just how much evil was in the Hitler regime. Slaughters go on around the world in all eras and until we recognize the evil is in people to do it again and again rather than to just the jews in WWII, it will not end. I applaud Pope Benedict for taking the universal approach at this time. Giving in to every whim of a people who think they are more deserving than they are willing to offer others is not the way forward. I know he has made mis-steps. I don't feel this is one of them.

The "cry against every act of injustice and violence" and the "reproach against the spilling of innocent blood" that Benedict speaks of surely includes the holocaust which the Zionists have been inflicting upon the Palestinians for the past 61 years.

All in all, I think he (and the Church) would be better off if he stayed home and focused on his book. He doesn't have the skills to deal with tricky situations in person. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,624253,00.html

"WHAT THE POPE DOES NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND" - these are the pompous, haughty words with which "David A" begins his withering attack on Pope Benedict. He's one of those armchair generals who has no sense of history, probably has never been oveseas, has little humility and lots of lingering and unhealed bitterness in his heart against the Catholic Church. He criticizes the Pope for these "public relations gaffes" and says "the pope keeps offending everyone he addresses." Have you no shame, Sir! Can't you see the beautiful things that are happening under your eyes? John Allen showed a lot of sensibility and finess in describing the Pope's historic visit to the Holy Land, where he met Muslims, Jews and Christians as brothers and sisters. You couldn't care less about "the messenger or the message." You wouldn't be talking about our own President -- or most all other world leaders -- in this cruel and unfair way. Pope Benedict is a special gift to our times.

I found the comment that John Allen represenns the "left" to be extremely childish.
Allen tries to present the most positive sides of Benedict (which helps explain the access he has to many top Catholic officials.)
Allen had laid out in advance that BXVI had set out a difficult task for himself in a world frauight with tensions and damgers.
The issue is not what one is"tired" of hearing -which sounds quite narcissistic, but whether Benedict has done a good job in the strengthening of relations among different parties and enhancing peace.
From news reports, not prejudiced views from those who would just adulate what a Pope does, a reaonable assessment so far has been it's a mixed bag.
Because there will be so much parsing of his words and actions in a very tense arena, BXVI needed to be super scripted.
It didn't always seem to happen.

Perhaps the problem is that he is a German born Pope. It his country who murdered the Jews. He is not just the Pope but he is also a German. Perhaps that is why it might be more important for the as a German. It is true Palistinians, Russians, Africans, Chinese, Native Americans and I might also add Germans themselves have all suffered. There is no limit to man's inhumanity across history. However, a planned, systematic building of concentration camps many with crematoriums or rather ovens and furnaces, gas chambers is suffering on a different scale. I myself am German born and know how difficult it is to live with the consequences of the Nazi Third Reich.

Amen!!

I just don't think God nor his middle management do Marketing and PR.
If God did, I don't think we would have the utter failure of the Cross continually casting its shadow through history.

"The Cross cannot be defeated for it is defeat."
GK Chesterton

I have read widely about the holocaust in all is ramifications for the Jewish people who suffered incredibly even unto death for six million of the Jewish people, and of the venom of largely Christian peoples whose inhumanity and evil grew the holocaut, over eighteen centuries indelibly marked by consistent unchristian thinking, rationalization, and inhuman behavior. Six million died, were murdered. Those same six million, and thousands of others suffered living brutality under Nazi and Christian rule in the years leading to the holocaust.

All that having been said and clearly remembered does not justify the present-day actions of the Israeli state. I find some comments about the pope (I am no great admirer of him) and others, more than a trifle hypocritical on the part of the powers that be in the state of Israel.

Peter Carey, SJ