My, it has become rather trendy these days to bash poor Pope Benedict XVI, hasn't it? His current predicament reminds me of another person, much closer to home, where half the island is ready to lynch poor President Chen when all the facts still remain unclear. Unlike with our president, however, the words and deeds of our pope are printed in black-and-white for all to see. Which brings us to one obvious conclusion: most of the people raising a ruckus haven't even bothered to carefully read the papal speech in its entirety, and Jonathan Freedland is no exception.
In his article, ("Pope Benedict's position demands he take more care with his words," Sept. 23, page 9), Freedland calls the Pope and his defenders to task for over the issue of freedom of speech. In truth, this entire debacle has very little to do with "freedom of speech" and much more to do with the responsibility to pay attention. Again, I remind you that His Holiness's entire speech remains available for all to read, most readily with a quick Google search.
Clearly, at least to me anyway, Pope Benedict is only guilty of burying his University of Regensburg audience under loads of yawnful academese (my apologies to His Holiness, but the truth is the truth).
Since I myself am an academic, I have been able to translate and summarize the speech into simple English, and I can't find a careless, irresponsible, insulting, "unaware," or "inept" (according to Freedland) word in it. Instead, the pontiff talks about how things haven't changed much over the centuries -- how even after 700 years, we're still banging the my religion is more reasonable than yours gong with tragic results.
Finally, he concludes with an invitation for everybody to sit down together on college campuses and talk to each other like the great, loving, reasonable creatures God made us to be -- a little lower than the angels.
So don't take Freedland's word for it, or even mine.
Read the speech for yourself and you will see that Pope Benedict has reached out to Muslims worldwide with loving, open arms, not with a crusader's sword. One would hope those days are long-gone.
Wei Xi-Ying
Taipei
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