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Pope strikes new balance in the Old City
May. 12, 2009
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Pope Benedict XVI stands in front of the Dome of the Rock, on the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in the Old City of Jerusalem May 12. The pope removed his shoes before entering the Dome of the Rock, a seventh-century shrine that protects an exposed rock revered by Muslims as the place from which Mohammed ascended to heaven.
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One theme of Pope Benedict XVI's week-long visit to the Holy Land has been outreach to both Muslims and Jews, and today brought the week's most delicate balancing act: Visits to both the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall, neighboring sites in Jerusalem's Old City sacred to Islam and Judaism, respectively, as well as meetings with both the city's Grand Mufti and Grand Rabbis.
Though Benedict XVI has met both Muslims and Jews before, meeting them both on the same day, and in two of the holiest sites on earth for each faith, was a novelty.
At the level of symbolism, Benedict tried to offer just the right touch in both places.
At the Dome of the Rock, a sanctuary housing the rock from which Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to Heaven, Benedict removed his shoes. (The fact that he didn't take them off at the Hussein-bin-Talal mosque in Jordan, even though his hosts told him he didn't need to, caused a brief frisson.)
The pontiff also began his address this morning in what Muslims call the "noble sanctuary," the square outside the Al-Aqsa mosque, by saying, As-salamu ‘alaikum, meaning "peace be upon you," the traditional Islamic greeting.
At the Western Wall, Benedict followed the lead of his predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, and left behind a note in the wall with a written prayer. In this case, Benedict prayed for "peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, and upon the entire human family."
Benedict's effort at balance even extended to the length of the pope's talks. His speech to the Grand Mufti was 775 words long, while the address to the Grand Rabbis was 763.
Perhaps by doing the two events separately, Benedict managed to steer clear of the sparks that sometimes flare when Muslims and Jews rub shoulders in Jerusalem.
The pope got a taste of that tension last night during an inter-faith session at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem, when a sheikh named Tayssir Attamimi, chief Islamic judge in the Palestinian Territories, used the occassion to unleash a heated diatribe about alleged Israeli atrocities, inviting Christians and Muslims to join forces against the Jewish state. Ironically, Attamimi made similar remarks during Pope John Paul II's 2000 visit to the Holy Land. On this occassion, the Vatican released a statement calling his comments "a direct negation of what dialogue should be."
Some early media reports suggested that Benedict had walked out of the inter-faith meeting in protest, but in fact Benedict was scheduled to leave at that moment. After Attamimi was encouraged to stop speaking, Benedict rose to leave, shaking Attamimi's hand on the way out. (Since Attamimi was speaking in Arabic, it's doubtful that the pontiff understood much of what he said, though it was obviously impassioned.)
In his speech this morning to the Grand Mufti and other Muslim leaders, Benedict urged "a sincere dialogue aimed at building a world of justice and peace for coming generations."
One distinctive touch in Benedict XVI's approach to relations with other faiths is a preference for what he's called "inter-cultural," rather than "inter-religious," dialogue, on the grounds that the latter risks compromising the unique identity of each tradition. The former emphasizes shared values and cooperation in the social, cultural, and political arenas.
In his speeches to both Jews and Muslims today, Benedict seemed to strike a strong "inter-cultural note" – even if the appeal was more explicit with the Grand Rabbis.
Referring to "our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person," Benedict said that "in approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values."
Pope Benedict with Msgr. Guido Marini, papal master of ceremonies, places a prayer for peace in a crevice of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in the Old City of Jerusalem May 12. (CNS/Reuters)Benedict also called upon Jews and Christians to "heighten society's appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions."
With the Muslims, Benedict's invitation to join the struggle against what he has famously described as a "dictatorship of relativism" was more subtle, with the pontiff simply referring to how Islam and Christianity both cherish "the law inscribed in the cosmos and implanted in the human heart."
Later in the day, the pope spoke to Catholic bishops in the Holy Land along with Franciscans responsible for the custody of the holy sites. It was an occasion for Benedict to once again encourage Christians to persevere, despite decades of out-migration that some refer to as a Christian "exodus" out of the region.
The pope told local Christians that their presence "is of vital importance for the goof od society as whole."
"Christians in the Middle East, together with other people of good will, are contributing, as loyal and responsible citizens, in spite of difficulties and restrictions, to the promotion and consolidation of a climate of peace in diversity," the pope said.
Benedict XVI also celebrated Mass today at a location near the Mount of Olives. Tomorrow, he makes a much-anticipated visit to Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, which is located on the West Bank within the Palestinian Territories. The pontiff will say Mass, visit a Palestinian refugee camp, and meet President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority.
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John L. Allen Jr. is NCR senior correspondent. His traveling with Pope Benedict XVI in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories May 8-15. Read NCRonline.org daily for his dispatches from the Holy Land.
The stories he has filed so far:
Benedict rides 'peace train' to Nazareth (May 14)
Church in Israel struggles to find its Hebrew voice (May 14)
Today, Benedict belonged to the Palestinians (May 13)
Pope strikes new balance in the Old City (May 12)
The pope and the Hitler Youth, in Benedict's own words (May 12)
Analysis: Benedict's timeless touch noble, but tricky (May 12)
At Yad Vashem, what pope doesn't say makes waves (May 11)
Pope in Israel mends fences, but doesn't pull punches (May 11)
Pope calls on Mideast Christians to perservere (May 10)
Benedict XVI sets new papal record for mosque visits (May 9)
Even in Jordan, Christian-Muslim ties not always easy (May 9)
Emphasis on Islam makes pope's trip an original (May 8)
Five challenges await pope on Middle East swing (May 7)
Pope's Holy Land pilgrimage a huge roll of the dice (May 7)
As usual, Mr. Allen, a
As usual, Mr. Allen, a superbly insightful reporter, gets to the essence with its great subtleties. Benedict XVI is obviously a good and great man and I see his motivations as utterly pure. But, like all of us, he has his human limitations. First of all, he is a scholar, not a politician. He is faulted for not addressing, at the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, either Nazis or his own membership in the Hitler Youth, for using the word "killing" vs. "murder" re the Holocaust, for not acknowledging the role of Catholic anti-semitism in the run-up to the Holocaust (e.g., it is Pius IX, whom John Paul II wanted to canonize, who first forced Jews to wear yellow stars on their clothes), and for not explaining why he chose, in order to heal a Church schism, to remove the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. For all of this he got bad press in Israel. Now the Vatican, in his defense, says, correctly, that he has made all these points previously. But what politicians know, as President Bush knew and President Obama knows, is that, to reach people, you must repeat yourself ad nauseam because most people are too consumed with their own issues and challenges and agendas to pay much attention unless one stays on message relentlessly. One must repeat oneself over and over again. Whereas scholars like Benedict often naively assume that, if one has said it once, that is enough.
But that is surface, the politics. There are deeper issues that Allen alludes to. Many people, including myself, believe Benedict cemented his election as Pope when he attacked "relativism" in his funeral oration for John Paul II. In his remarks in Israel, he has sought common ground with Judaism and Islam in the battle against relativism. This is the biggest problem I have with him. One American theologian at Vatican II, Rev. John Courtney Murray, S.J. or Rev. Gustave Weigel, S.J., said that Vatican II had moved the Church ahead several centuries -- to the Eighteenth and the age of rational enlightenment, finally agreeing to such radical concepts as religious freedom (whereas, until Vatican II, the Vatican believed, like Saudi Arabia today, that "error had no rights" and, therefore, "false" religions could, and rightfully should, be repressed.) Pope Benedict was one of those who, at the Council, helped to move the Church from mythology to rationality. He remains today a man who greatly honors rationality and science, including such sciences as biblical criticism.
But, in 1968, there was a revolution in thinking in the US, France, Germany, Mexico and elsewhere, the advent of a newer and more sophisticated and nuanced rationality, one that saw the value of pluralism and multiculturalism and rejected the "myth of the given," the idea that, because certain assumptions had been long held by particlar cultures, e.g., the supremacy of men over women or the normative superiority of heterosexuality over homosexuality, these long-held assumptions were "natural law" or even "God ordained." The new rationality rejected such cultural assumptions. What was true or "natural law" was not so simply because millions of humans had assumed such were true for a very long time. The views of other, equally rational, cultures, subcultures, and traditions had to be considered.
That is when Pope Benedict, then in his 40s, became a conservative. He could not accept pluralism or multiculturalism because he believed these long-held assumptions (in which he himself had been trained and schooled) about women and gays (and other long-held assumptions) were God-ordained and "natural law." He still believes that and sees pluralism as pure relativism, which it is not.
Allen also notes that Benedict deliberately speaks of an "inter-cultural dialogue" instead of an "inter-religious dialoge." Why? I believe that the Pope realizes, as I do, that true two-way ecumenism, as envisioned by the Council, has failed. And that is because such as Benedict, as Allen says, fear a true give and take dialogue. Just for one example, the Catholic Church does not teach reincarnation (whatever that term may mean) yet reincarnation is taught by Buddhists, Hindus, New Agers, Hasidic Jews, most Native American and shamanic religions, many Sufi Muslims, and many other religious traditions. It would seem obvious that the truth must be somewhere "in between" but, as Allen suggests, Pope Benedict is not willing to give an inch re what he considers Catholic "identity." So, as on this and many other issues, no real dialogue-in-search-of-truth is possible. The Pope rules it out. Vatican II's vision of truth-seeking inter-religious dialogue is abandoned -- perhaps because, like the folks on EWTN, it is simply assumed that the Church already has all the answers.
What Benedict does propose, as Allen says, is an inter-cultural dialogue and even alliance. I expect he means something like the alliance of Christian, Jewish and Muslims leaders a couple years ago which prevented Israeli young people from holding a gay pride march in Jerusalem. I am afraid that kind of thing is exactly what Benedict means by an inter-cultural alliance of Chistians, Jews and Muslims to fight "relativism." In fact, I am sure that's the very kind of thing he has in mind -- and he has had the Vatican delegation at the UN working on similar proposals. Benedict got scared in 1968 and has remained scared ever since. But, for now, he is our leader. We are right to pray for him at Mass every Sunday. The issues he has been elected to deal with are far more difficult than most people realize and how they are handled have real effects, for better or worse, on real human beings.
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