There seems to be not just a hue and cry about the negative comments about Islam by Catholic Pope Benedict XVII. The FaithFul Progressive blog says that this is also the second lapse of judgement by the Pope and the second religion he has offended. The Pope also got it wrong in his Auschwitz address, the Faithful Progressive says.
Some call the "infallibility"of the Pope into question. But those who do so may misunderstand the meaning of papal infallibility. Every act of the Pope is not considered infallible, only his ex cathedra teachings. So Popes as well as Presidents can "blow it" and show lack of good judgement. "Is the Pope Infallible?" asks Daniel Enberger's article in Slate magazine. "Only when he says he is", the subhead reads.
Other comments to "Pope 'Deeply Sorry' for His Offensive Remarks" point out that the Pope's remarks, no matter how well intended, were poorly chosen and serve only to encourage the extreme religious right in their mistaken belief that Islam is more violent than Christianity.
Europe experienced religious wars, the Crusades were by Catholics, and millions have been killed in the Americas in the name of religion. The blog postings even point to morally bankrupt practices of early California missions.
2 comments:
What an interesting take! I hadn't thought about the doctrine of Papal infallibility in quite a while.
Seven Star Hand added a comment, which I have excerpted below in order to remove the anti-Christian rant paragraphs:
"The Pope's choice of words was brain dead, in my humble opinion, if he was seeking to spread peace. He could have appealed for cooler heads and humility from all sides using any other words, but instead he chose to quote Crusade era hypocrisy that was guaranteed to inflame Muslims. Now we see the backtracking and spinning that always follows the gaffes of those afraid of simply telling the truth."
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