Did Pope Benedict XVI have historical reasons for choosing Regensberg for the site of his address last year that enflamed the Islamic world? Patrick Poole has a provocative post explaining why that might indeed be the case.
Did Pope Benedict XVI have historical reasons for choosing Regensberg for the site of his address last year that enflamed the Islamic world? Patrick Poole has a provocative post explaining why that might indeed be the case.
I wonder how much longer we will have to speculate about the Pope's thoughts and intentions, with a priest here telling us what the Pope said to a friend of a friend, or a priest there telling us what the Pope believes from conversations he was said to have engaged in, or a blogger over there connecting a couple of dots amid a wider field of disconnected synapses. Wasn't there a time in the good old days when Popes made their convictions known about Muslims in no uncertain terms?
I like it. With the Islamists devoted to and dwelling on the past, maybe the Pope was making a much stronger statement than it first appeared.
In my mind there is no question that the symbolism of the Pope's venue was well known by the Church. I was wondering if someone would pick up on it. I might add that to my knowledge no one has commented that our military response to 9/11 commenced with the attacks on Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. Does Oct. 7 and Christian Islamic tension ring a bell?
Yes, in your mind.
Wasn't there a time in the good old days when Popes made their convictions known about Muslims in no uncertain terms?
Posted by: remote_control
But what about logos? We can still debate what his message was to us. It was more then just a message to muslims.....it was a message to us was it not.
Freods Does this ring a bell? Friday the 13 (the one that caused all the bad luck superstition) Oct. 13, 1307. This Oct. 13 will be seven hundred years. There are rumors about it.
Isn't it interesting how seven plays so much in things? There are a lot of Sevens in the Book of Revelation.
And I'm-a-nut-job called for March 13 to be his big day.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Amazing, the most historical speech of the era as infamous as Reagan's TEAR DOWN THIS WALL and the entire media missed it!
Thank God for bloggers as they are the proof the intelligent thinkers are here and is why people are flocking to the source of knowledge.
Did you hear CBS Katie Couric in ratings can not beat out Malcom in the Middle in LA lol.
Jihad Watch and all the bloggers is why.
Reading the article I am sure Pope Benedict knew exactly why he chose Regensburg. The fact that it takes - even in the non main stream media like this blog - nearly half a year to acknowledge that speaks for him.
He's one of the few brilliant minds of our time whose thoughts can span decades and centuries - not just the few days (or at a maximum his election term) a politician can handle.
The fact that he went to Istanbul, the ancient Byzanz and met the highest authority of the Christian orthodox church, the heir of the Byzantine empire - one month after that speech - is another sign of the message he wants to deliver.
And still this man managed to become popular with the Turks during his visit. Will take them probably years to get the message.
Only history will know the significance of him being pope but I think he'll take an important place. Strange as it is, I as a Christian don't share many of his orthodox views but I can't help admiring his outstanding intellect.
Remote_control: no, not really. No Pope has ever been free to speak his mind as he pleased. Do you imagine for a minute that when a Pope called a Longobard bandit who had just devastated half of Italy "My child", or when another embraced a German Emperor who had fought him for twenty years, or when Pope Leo XIII - the greatest Pope, perhaps, of modern times - awarded a papal knighthood to the former persecutor Bismarck, they were sincere? No; they were acting in the best interests of their flock as they saw it - trying to placate savage minds, reach peace with obstinate enemies, and keep peace once made. No human being with a responsibility for anyone else, let alone a Pope, ever gives his tongue free rein.
Paolo,
Pope Urban II in the 11th century stated that
"...a people from the kingdom of the Persians, a foreign race, a race absolutely alien to God . . . has invaded the land of those Christians, has reduced the people with sword, rapine and flame."
Pope Urban II also spoke about how the Muslims "...enslaved them [Christian churches/people] to the practice of its own rites..."
and how the Muslim "...has invaded the land of those Christians, has reduced the people with sword, rapine, and flame and has carried off some as captives to its own land, has cut down others by pitiable murder..."
Not only have Muslims not changed since the 11th century, and not only do Muslims continue to persecute and mass murder Christians in our day, but a Pope today, with the intervening 900 years of additional Islamic evil and atrocities to further bolster Urban II's clear and unequivocal condemnation of Muslims, has no excuse not to at least follow Urban II's clarion call.
Freods Does this ring a bell? Friday the 13 (the one that caused all the bad luck superstition) Oct. 13, 1307. This Oct. 13 will be seven hundred years. ....
.................. Curiouser and curiouser.
Posted by: auntbea on February 9, 2007 12:49 PM
Just checked, but Oct. 13, 1307 was not on Friday but Thursday. (I used the calculator on the following site: http://www.easycalculation.com/date-day/day-of-year.php )
Paolo wrote:
“…they were acting in the best interests of their flock as they saw it - trying to placate savage minds, reach peace with obstinate enemies, and keep peace once made. No human being with a responsibility for anyone else, let alone a Pope, ever gives his tongue free rein.”
While that is true in principle, the Pope (as remote_control pointed out) is all too aware of the atrocities and will stand accountable if he DOESN’T speak up. Even if Islamists retaliate by harming some of the flock, the fate of the many (including those not born yet) will be determined by the decisions he makes now.
Look at the losses suffered via “friendly fire” in the battle at Lepanto…
From the article:
“…Christians were participants on both sides of the battle at Lepanto, as Ali Pasha's ships were powered by Christian slaves and manned by Janissaries…By the end of the day, the Holy League had won by God's grace a decisive victory: the Turks had lost 210 ships and 25,000 Muslim soldiers and sailors, including Ali Pasha, as well as 8-10,000 Christian slaves that drowned chained to their oars. The Christian fleet lost 12 ships and 7,500 men, but freed 15,000 Christian slaves from their defeated and dead Muslim masters.”
Talk about collateral damage! Human sheilds were ineffective in this legendary battle but thousands more were saved including future victims.
-XRDC
Excellent historical connection and had the Pope not intended it to be - his address at Regensberg is nevertheless symbolic for these reasons.
May it be the place where global jihad is again stopped, but this time do not just halt it - push islam all the way back to where it started -return all the muslim-occupied lands to the Christians, Jews, et al from whom it was stolen.
XRDC and remote_control: The Church and the Popes speak according to time and place, according to St.Paul's precept of being all things to all people so that by all means some may be saved. In 1095, Pope Urbanus was dealing with an aristocracy who believed that war was the natural business of kings and noblemen, and his intention was to turn that aggression outwards against the Turks instead of wasting it in wars between Christians. A part of this was also the hope to reduce the natural violence between Christians altogether - a hope that was the centre of Papal politics until the fifteen hundreds, and that was clearly stated by St.Thomas More, when he was England's chief minister, as the centre of his own political action.
Nine hundred and fifty years later, Pope Benedict is dealing with a society that thinks that the main business of states and international organizations is peace, and that war is a bloody and stupid digression. IN this situation, the Pope has to try and awaken the West to the impossibility of having permanent peace with a religion that does not accept that God is rational; while at the same time not losing the hope to educate any Muslim who wants to peaceful and rational debate. If Pope Benedict spoke now as Pope Urbanus spoke then, nobody would listen, and all the enormous number of enemies of the Church would start treating him as they treat Jerry Falwell. Different times, different methods.
Razdan,
When you calculate the day of the week for any date before 1582 remember that there are no days between October 04, 1582 and October 15, 1582. These 11 days simply vanished with the changeover from the Julian to Gregorian calendars.
AuntBea,
Despite absurd explanations (even on wikipedia and in legitimate encyclopedias)about Jaques de Molay or other causes, the real reason that Friday 13th came to have "bad luck superstitions" is because Jesus was crucified on a Friday 13th. His crucifixion was on the day before the evening of passover (the 14th of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar) which was the day before the Saturday Sabbath according to the gospels i.e. a Friday the 13th. On the modern calendar the date of the crucifixion is Friday, April 7, 30 AD at the same time the lambs were being slaughtered for that evening's Pesach.
Bravo Pope BXVI, the hero of our times!!!