The Pope Flap

Getting our mouths washed out with soap was a threat my buddies and I heard countless times during our childhood, all across the neighborhood. We worried some about it, but never saw any of our elders actually carry it out. Maybe the time finally has come to translate these off-putting words into action, especially among religious leaders, as a counterpart to getting our feet washed by some of them.

Somehow, Pope Benedict recently got it into his head that the interests of Christian-Muslim dialogue would be served by quoting in a lecture an almost never read medieval passage that characterized some of the prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman." Even 24 hours later, the Pontiff's brain still had some waking up to do. He was declared surprised and upset that Muslims took offense at what he said. Then he apologized, but only for the effect his words had, not for quoting them in the first place.

The trouble was that by the time the Pope finally began clarifying what he did and did not intend his lecture to say, the rallies and the official condemnations, along with the usual shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stupid remarks --- for one, comparing the Pope with Hitler and Mussolini --- had reached the level of mindless frenzy. Is there anybody out there still interested in conversations about Christianity and Islam that make sense?

Ok, guys, put a sock in it for a minute, and let those who are suffering the consequences of your insensitivity and rage get a few words in edge-wise. In the first place, your Holiness, you of all people should have known better than to try to get a discussion going on jihad by sticking a blowtorch in Muslims' faces as your opening move. And your "extremely upset" reaction of surprise was pretty lame, don't you think? Now, secondly, Muslim friends, take a step back out of the blowtorch's range --- it really isn't the kind of flame that can inflict damage, except to false pride --- count to ten, read the Pope's act of quotation for what it really was, ill-considered and irrelevant, and join the rest of us again in working out how to thank the Almighty for our lives together.

It is tedious to keep reading and hearing ill-informed and even malicious caricatures of fellow human beings' deepest religious sentiments and convictions --- sorry, The Prophet was not an off-with-your-head kind of a guy --- and the condescending attitude that lies behind them. And it is no easier to deal with the ready-fire-aim reactions of religious fanatics whose sense of outrage may be appropriate once in a while, but whose fuses are too short to allow them ever to express it constructively. Arrest the Pope when he touches down in Turkey? Come on.

Both the defaming of others' faith, and the assaulting of the defamers, have long since become very dangerous enterprises that all too readily sweep up innocent bystanders, whether in churches, mosques, or on the street, in their fury. I know of no better way to prevent the assaults than to cut out the defamations that provoke them. But I also know of no better way to prevent the escalation of religious violence than to get a handle on the narcissism that takes the slightest criticism as an occasion for wanton destructiveness. Effigy-burning touchiness, with all of the humorlessness that leads up to it, is no more attractive in a religious rally than it is in a gang-related street brawl. Muslims certainly have cause for irritation when The Prophet is insulted. But Muhammad knew well that insults go with the territory, and he handled them far better in his own day than many of his followers are handling them in ours.

Holding provocativeness in check, though, along with scaling down our reactions to it, does not mean avoiding the hard issues that keep otherwise sincerely motivated religious people from experiencing, together, that all-surpassing love from the Divine Lover who is called by different names but who is, by any name, Love-itself. The Pope is right, and profoundly so, to stand his ground in calling for dialogue on the violent manifestations of religion, and Muslims need to come to terms with the deeply misleading pronouncements of some of their most revered clergy who love swords more than ploughshares, and weapons of mass destruction most of all. But the Holy Father also needs to be more straightforward about the Christian tradition itself, which included Holy War stuff long before The Prophet ever had the grace to be be born among us.