Pope Benedict’s Triumph

I’ve been at a conference this week in the most beautiful place on earth with little access to news or blogging, but according to all reliable sources Pope Benedict XVI managed to confound his critics once again and pulled off a major diplomatic coup in Turkey this week:

Benedict’s grand gesture came Thursday at the splendid Blue Mosque. He took off his shoes, as Muslims do before entering. And then, wrote the newspaper Hurriyet, "he turned toward Mecca and prayed [standing] like Muslims." The p ope knew just the right touches to show Muslims that he honored their faith.

The p ope also reminded Turks that he wanted them to treat the few Orthodox Christians remaining in their country with respect. The Orthodox patriarch, whose headquarters are in Istanbul, is circumscribed in ways that would be intolerable in any society that values religious freedom. The patriarchate, for instance, cannot own property, and the patriarch can only be chosen from Turkish citizens. Turkey will have difficulty entering the EU until it allows Orthodox Christians and members of other religious minorities the space to fully express their faiths.

The p ope’s visit, with its push-and-pull between deference and polite criticism, offers a model for how Christians and Muslims should deal with one another. They cannot ignore their shared history — conquest and persecution and profound disagreements over doctrine and day-to-day religious practices. But they can find commonality in their belief in the transcendent, and the singularity of the divine. Dialogue and respect will do much to soothe the tensions inherent in contact between two great religious traditions.

The fact that the neocons at the Weekly Standard expressed disappointment at Benedict’s call for Turkey joining the EU, and the German hate blog – Politically Incorrect – was shocked that there were not riots in street (writing contemptuously about "Dialüge")is a further indication of Benedict’s triumph. Benedikt may accomplish more in his papacy to reconcile faiths than even his predecessor.