A Defense And A Warning

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, has come out with a speech strongly supporting Pope Benedict XVI over the ruckus that remarks the Pope made in a speech in Germany. There is also a bizarre warning in the article, the first mention of this I have heard.

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”

Lord Carey’s address came as the man who shot and wounded the last Pope wrote to Pope Benedict XVI to warn him that he was in danger. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to murder John Paul II in 1981 and is now in prison in Turkey, urged the Pope not to visit the country in November.

“I write as one who knows about these matters very well,” Agca said. “Your life is in danger. Don’t come to Turkey — absolutely not!”

Frankly, I think the Pope should not go to Turkey, but I rather fear he will anyway. It really bothers me that the press continues to pimp this ruckus, even the Times of London which is usually at least less like a tabloid than other media these days. The quoted text of the Pope's speech keeps getting shortened. It is down to:

Since the Pope quoted a Byzantine emperor as saying that the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad were “evil and inhuman”, a nun has been shot dead, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda has vowed to kill the Pope, churches in Palestinian areas have been attacked and security at churches and mosques in London and elsewhere has been stepped up.

Pope Benedict, of course, said a great deal more than those three quoted words, and the thrust of what he said was not in those words at all.