14 September 2006
During his visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI has criticized the concept of Holy War in Islam. In a theological lecture to staff and students at the University of Regensburg, where he taught theology in the 1970s, the Pope quoted criticisms of the Prophet Mohammed by a 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II. "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," Benedict quoted him as saying in a contemporary debate with a learned Persian. "The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable," said Benedict, during his lecture on the relationship between faith and reason. "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul," he added. Reiterating his concerns about a modern world "deaf" to God, he warned that other religious cultures saw the West's exclusion of God "as an attack on their most profound convictions", adding: "A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."
Although the section of the lecture dealing with Islam was relatively short, its inclusion made his address at Regensburg the most political of his six-day visit, which had previously dealt exclusively with spiritual matters. Presiding later over an ecumenical prayer meeting with Orthodox Christian and Protestant leaders, Benedict led prayers for the success of ongoing discussions with other Churches aimed ultimately at uniting Christians, a clear aim of his pontificate. At a giant open-air mass earlier Tuesday attended by some 250,000 pilgrims, the pope urged them to stand up for their beliefs in the face of the "hatred and fanaticism" tarnishing religion. "Today, when we have learned to recognize the pathologies and life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason, and the ways that God's image can be destroyed by hatred and fanaticism, it is important to state clearly the God in whom we believe." However, the head of the Catholic Church called for a "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions [that is] so urgently needed today."
