Pope seeks dialogue of cultures, gets earful

It's a bit scary, but George Bush and Pope Benedict XVI seem to be on the same page.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan’s parliament unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI on Friday for making what it called “derogatory” comments about Islam and demanded he apologize.

… In a speech, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad 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.”

They aren't very happy about this in Turkey either:

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted party joined a wave of criticism of Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades with remarks he made about the Muslim faith. A Turkish lawmaker said the pontiff would go down in history "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini" for his words.

I think the Turkish lawmaker is wrong about one thing there. Neither Bush nor the Pope are taking us back to the days of Hitler and Mussolini. They're trying to take us back far further, into the days of the Inquisition or before. Most of the Pope's speech was about the conflict between reason and spirituality. And, it didn't seem as though reason won out. Here's his conclusion:

In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. 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.

But, I especially liked this little tidbit near the end of his speech:

The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application... Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today.

Yes, he certainly did promote a genuine dialogue of cultures and religions, didn't he?

Rub-a-dub-dub, gee thanks for the grub. Go God, go.