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They "misunderestimate" Papa Ratzi at their own risk

Our sis says Father Jon, Fox News' cuddly Pope commentator (above) is "a little bit too cute to be a priest. I'm mighty suspicious." And she's the one who believes in Jesus.

We put ourselves on a Google news alert months ago for all things Papa Ratzi. Today, on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI's historic and fraughtful visit to Turkey, Father Jonathan Morris of Fox News tumbled into our emailbox with news that he will be "providing television and web commentary from Turkey throughout the week." His first dispatch, "Pope Benedict the Brave" made our spirits soar. Hoping to get him to lend us an ear, we emailed our thoughts:

Dear Father Jonathan,

I love your Fox News essay, "Pope Benedict the Brave." It's one of the few -- the only one? -- I've seen in that vast wasteland of religious ignorance we call the mainstream media that knows what it's talking about. They "misunderestimate" Papa Ratzi at their own risk. I've often blogged about this great student of history and human nature -- who was warning the West of the gathering Eurabian storm long before he became Benedict XVI -- most recently critiquing Time Magazine's "While Time Magazine Slept" clueless cover story.

'Am looking forward with great excitement -- and some trepidation -- to your coverage of coming events.

Doc Sanity has more of the same, not about Papa Ratzi per se but about the larger titanic struggle with the enemies of civilization:

The MSM have been actively undoing the Bush foreign policy activities as fast as they can. They have promoted terrorist propaganda and denigrated our own military in order to do it; they have emphasized anything which makes the current administration look bad and given evil a free pass, focusing instead on any instance of American ineptitude as evidence of unmitigated American evil. Meanwhile the unmitigated evil of the enemies of civilization continues unabated, sure in the knowledge that they, too, can count on the western media to support and enable their goals.

Then there's John Sentamu (above), "the Archbishop of Canterbury-in-waiting" according to the London Times:

The contrast between the charismatic Archbishop of York and Rowan Williams, the cerebral and prevaricating occupant of Lambeth Palace, sprang into sharp relief last week. As MPs and the public rallied to Sentamu’s withering attack on British Airways for banning an employee from openly wearing a cross at work, Williams chose to travel with BA for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican.

Sentamu also took on the BBC, which he claimed was biased against the Church of England: “We get more knocks. They do to us what they dare not do to Muslims.”

In an impassioned critique of the “systematic erosion” of the majority faith by an “illiberal atheism”, he castigated the abandonment of traditional Christmas cards in favour of Season’s Greetings versions, the introduction of “Winterval” in the Christmas holiday period and the Royal Mail for not featuring Jesus on Christmas stamps.

With his trademark gap-toothed grin and staccato enunciation of quaint English, the Ugandan-born archbishop is credited with having an electrifying effect on faithless, post-Christian Britain.

If Papa Ratzi, Dr. Sanity and the Archbishop of York be for us, who can be against us? Listen here.

Update: Pajamas Media links.
 

While Time Magazine slept

Time Magazine "suddenly" discovers a voice in the wilderness: "Pope Benedict XVI talks with members of a Muslim delegation from the U.S. at the end of his weekly Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, March 1, 2006." (Alessandro Bianchi/Reutrs/Corbis photo)

"Suddenly, when he speaks, the whole world listens," gushes a breathless Time Mag, enthralled with its belated discovery of Papa Ratzi, the Pope who loves cats and Mozart. Long before Cardinal Ratzinger became Benedict XVI, the great student of history and human nature was warning the West of the gathering Eurabian storm. But only when Time notices the "hard-knuckle intellect with a taste for blunt talk and interreligious confrontation" is this voice in the wilderness "suddenly" heard:

Few people saw this coming. Nobody truly expected Benedict to be a mere caretaker Pope -- his sometimes ferocious 24-year tenure as the Vatican's theological enforcer and John Paul's right hand suggested anything but passivity. But this same familiarity argued against surprises.

We guess it depends upon what your definition of "few" is, not to mention your capacity for surprise. Take the late Oriana Fallaci, for one, the renowned Italian journalist indicted in her native country for vilifying, as the law says, a "religion admitted by the state," in this case Islam. We've often quoted Fallaci's transcendent words regarding her spiritual connection with "her soulmate," as she told the WSJ's Tunku Varadarajan last year:

I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.

Time continues in its self-congratulatory mode of sudden discovery:

The new Pontiff was expected to sustain John Paul's conservative line on morality and church discipline and focus most of his energies on trimming the Vatican bureaucracy and battling Western culture's "moral relativism."

Don't you love the scare quotes around moral relativism?

Although acknowledged as a brilliant conservative theologian, Benedict lacked the open-armed charisma of his predecessor. Moreover, what had initially propelled John Paul to the center of the world stage was his challenge to communism and its subsequent fall, a huge geopolitical event that the Pope helped precipitate with two exhilarating visits to his beloved Polish homeland. By contrast, what could Benedict do? Liberate Bavaria?

"Open-armed charisma" aside -- eye of the beholder? -- can you say clueless? While Time Magazine slept:

But this year he has emerged as a far more compelling and complex figure than anyone [Anyone in your Pauline Kael bubble of denial, perhaps] had imagined. And much of that has to do with his willingness to confront what some people feel [It's those "some people" again, but this time what they "feel" makes a lot of sense] is today's equivalent of the communist scourge -- the threat of Islamic violence.

But [But? Again, where have you been?] by speaking out last September in Regensburg, Germany, about the possible intrinsic connection between Islam and violence [Doh], the Pontiff suddenly [Yawn] became a lot more interesting. Even when Islamic extremists destroyed several churches and murdered a nun in Somalia, Benedict refused to retract the essence of his remarks. [Hey, big boy, when was the last time YOU retracted the essence of your remarks?] In one imperfect [Sez who?] but powerful stroke, he departed from his predecessor's largely benign approach to Islam and discovered [No, hon. He's been there forever. It's YOU who belatedly "discovered"] an issue that might attract even the most religiously jaded. In doing so, he managed (for better or worse) to reanimate the clash-of-civilizations discussion by focusing scrutiny on the core question of whether Islam, as a religion, sanctions violence.

You think?

Update: We're putting you on hold, Time Magazine. Instapundit is on the line.

Update II:  Pajamas Media links.

"For years, Republicans have tried to demoralize and defeat us"

Tiny takes shelter from the cold autumn air in the little house this morning. Like many Republicans during this wild-and-wooly mid-term election season, Tiny keeps her eye on the real enemy -- in her case, feline intruders in her territory -- letting Democrats wallow in their own self-defeating paranoia.

"I know you're busy. If you're like me, you sometimes wish politics was someone else's responsibility," dissembles Adam Ruben of moveon.org -- who gets paid to play politics, after all -- in a last-ditch email to the Kool-Aid-drinking faithful to hit the phones and get out the vote. As it happens, we're not much like Mr. Ruben, who once again projects the modus operandi of the paranoid left onto us over here on the right side of the aisle:

For years, Republicans have tried to demoralize and defeat us.

Can you say all about you, Adam Ruben? Frankly, my dear, most of us Republicans have been too busy thinking about how to demoralize and defeat your fellow travelers -- the Islamofascists bent on destroying Western Civ -- to worry too much about how good or bad you feel about yourself. We leave navel gazing and self-defeat to you. Ruben continues to fantasize:

But through the Iraq war, through Katrina, through the scandals and the lies, our determination has only increased. We're not beaten down -- we're rising up. This is our week. After six long years, this is the week when we can finally set our country back on its proper course. This week is about proving that progressives are a real force in American politics -- that the issues that we care about are the issues that most Americans care about -- and that Washington has to start paying attention.

And that's it, after all, isn't it, the importance of being noticed. We look forward to hearing something beyond "You must take him down" regarding your vision of our country's "proper course."

The little house is the perfect vantage point for covering one's flank during surveillance exercises for enemy incursions.

While we agree with Dick Armey that if the Republicans lose big time, they bought their ticket by preferring power to principle, we continue to believe -- combining reason [Karl Rove's micro-targeting] and faith [Surely God's plan could not include Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House!] -- that we could still pull this thing off at the last minute. Listen to blogfriend Gayle Miller of And you thought YOU were cranky? in the comments:

The RNC has been blanketing our part of [Ohio] with ads all of a sudden! Interesting strategy. The Dems have been spending obscene amounts of money shreiking all manner of probably-not-true charges at Republican incumbents, almost entirely unanswered and NOW, when they're almost out of money -- here come the Republican ads. Much better production, not shrill, very crisp and to the point and, what's best of all, ubiquitous! And the Dems are short on money [and time] to respond - and of course, they're whining about it!

Then there's that idea we referenced in our previous post about the power of "creative minorities" to get doomed civilizations back on track. Thanks to our sub rosa blogfriend MB of Miss Kelly for reminding us of the source, Jean Duchesne's review of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's [now Pope Benedict XVI] and Marcello Pera's Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam:

The roots that are said to have been lost are the indelible Christian components at the true origin of European history and identity . . .

Cardinal Ratzinger refuses to follow the German thinker Oswald Spengler, who argued that all civilizations are doomed to decline and die. He rather supports the British historian Arnold Toynbee, who claimed that societies are shaped by “creative minorities” who are also capable of renewing them . . .

Christians, and especially Catholics, are expected to recognize themselves as such a “creative minority” today. This amounts to admitting that, at least in Europe, the Church might already have become marginal, while the secularism that is implicit in hedonistic lifestyles is gaining ground in America.

You want a creative minority to save Western Civ? Look no further than Glenn Reynolds's ecumenical "small is the new big" Army of Davids.

Update: Speaking of creative minorities, the catbloggers have done it again. Check out the "scary, mysterious, and spooky" Carnival of the Cats #136 - Halloween 2006 Edition brought to you by Watermark: a poet's notebook.

Not only extreme but inhuman

Had things worked out between the People's Republic of North Korea and the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as fantasized by the happy campers of the Clinton White House back when Maddy met Kim in October of 2000 (above left), her shimmering patronym -- Albright -- as contrasted to his [first/last?] name -- Il [Ill?] -- would have been metaphorical fodder for the blogger's mill. But as it turned out, we're using the PRNKs recent new-Q-lar unpleasantness as an opportunity to tout a new category for this blog, "Take your pick." This is the third time we've asked ourselves that very question. It's starting to look like a meme. In this case, it's Kim Jong-Il vs. Boston's warm and wise and user-friendly Cardinal O'Malley (above right, Cardinal Seán's Fall Trip to Rome photo): Take your pick. Previous take your picks here and here.

Our sis is forever lightly scolding us with the epithet "too soon made glad." No doubt we are, and in that spirit we now confess that Boston's own Cardinal Seán O'Malley makes us smile with our heart. He blogs at Cardinal Seán’s Fall Trip To Rome, where the comments confirm the Capuchin monk chosen by Papa Ratzi to lead the oft beleaguered Archdiocese of Boston out of the desert is really on to something. Here's what we asked His Eminence today via the comments there:

Your blog is truly warm and wonderful and inspiring, and I’m not even catholic. As the late Oriana Fallaci said, “If an atheist and a pope [Papa Ratzi] think the same things, there must be something true.”

My question for you, should you find time and interest to respond in a future post, is what are we to make of the Amish community’s forgiveness of the torturer and murderer of their children? My thinking is that their response is only the other side of the coin of Islamic radicals’ violent response to the slightest offense. In my view, both -- presumably justified by religious arguments -- are not only extreme but inhuman. The Amish response amounts to appeasement of bad behavior, which would seem to encourage rather than restrain future bad acts.

We invite our readers' thoughts.

"The mirage towards which you are driving your people's sons"

To Osama's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri (right) -- blinded by his hatred of all things Western -- Pope Benedict is a "charlatan," while to Soumaya Ghannoushi (left) -- an aljazeera.net columnist "currently completing a doctorate thesis on the medieval origins of the Orientalist discourse" -- her vision distorted with postmodern fairy dust -- "The Pope's response to the anger his statements sparked in the Muslim world was more offensive than the statements themselves. He apologised not for what he said, but for Muslims' failure to grasp the intended meaning . . . Islam is still perceived as the other, the embodiment of evil."

"Why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and its allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people's sons in order to increase your profits?" taunts the psychologically damaged Ayman al-Zawahiri, projecting his own demons onto the Leader of the Free World in a video posted yesterday on the internet and released by the Virginia-based IntelCenter. According to David Asman on FoxNews, Zawahiri's hysterical outburst kept the Dow from ending at an all-time high this afternoon. Darn. That would have been such a nice end-of-quarter thing, not to mention Neil Cavuto's promised graphics extravaganza when the all-time high does occur:

Aljazeera reports that Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, in a new video message has called US President George Bush a liar who had failed in his war against al-Qaeda.

Oooh. Ayman reads the New York Times. What a big boy. But one thing the angry old gynophobe missed that's telling. He speaks of "your people's sons" but not of our daughters. Like his hero Sayyid Qutb -- whom he called "the most prominent theoretician of the fundamentalist movements" -- Ayman has always had a woman problem (She made me do it, Lord). As we wrote a couple of years back:

Remarkable how the misogynist fantasies of a couple of dystopic guys like Mussa Sadr Al-Sadr and Ayman Zawahiri can infect entire generations of muslim youngsters in much the same way that Nazi and marxist ideologies infected everyday folk in the last century.

No question Ayman has a way with words:

Bush, O failure and liar, why don't you be courageous for once and confront your people and tell them the truth about your losses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We guess that passes for tough talk in some circles. Nancy Pelosi, listen up. Predictably, Zawahiri has nothing good to say about the Holy Father -- the Pope who loves cats and Mozart -- either:

Al-Zawahiri also called Pope Benedict a "charlatan" because of his remarks on Islam.

"This charlatan accused Islam of being incompatible with rationality while forgetting that his own Christianity is unacceptable to a sensible mind."

Uh, huh. Same old same old. I'll kill you if you call me a killer. If you haven't already -- we know Ayman hasn't and never will as it might disrupt his self-affirming cognitive dissonance -- be sure to read Lee Harris's deeply satisfying take on what Papa Ratzi is really up to in his "Socrates or Muhammad?" at The Weekly Standard [via Miss Kelly]. Our awesome nephew/godson, a professor of philosophy whose first book -- Rousseau's Theory of Freedom -- we blogged here, comments on Harris's thesis:

I'm not sure what would be left of organized religion if its adherents seriously engaged in "self-critical examination of their own beliefs," but it's nice anyway to see the Pope coming out on the side of reason and argumentation. If the Pope is joining forces with the spirit of Socrates against fundamentalist Islam, then I guess it's true that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

Echoes of Oriana Fallaci's "If an atheist and a pope can think the same things, there must be something true." One final thought on the bottomless pit of Islamofascist hypersensitivity to perceived insults. There may be a light at the end of the Eurabian tunnel, and it may have something to do with Mozart. You probably heard the story about Berlin's Deutsche Opera company's decision the other day to preemptively deschedule Mozart's opera "Idomeneo," trendily staged -- to the disgust of at least one Mozart purist -- with the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and you know who [pbuh] -- because of dhimmitudinous fears of Islamist reprisals. Now it turns out German opera lovers are just saying no:

Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister and the country's top security official, said on Wednesday that 30 government and Muslim representatives, meeting in Berlin to launch a three-year dialogue forum, had "spoken out unanimously" that the opera should be performed as scheduled in November . . .

The support offered to the opera by the German-Islam Conference, the dialogue forum established on Wednesday and set to run for at least two years, showed that Muslim groups in Germany rejected extremism and supported artistic freedom, Mr Schäuble said.

We happened to surf into a performance of Mozart's "Mass in C Minor" -- "taped live at the Knight’s Hall in Wolfegg, Germany" -- in the wee hours on Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) this morning. It brought to mind William Congreve's oft-misquoted quotable quote:

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

Is it true, as Darul Ifta of Ask the Imam says, that "music has been condemned strongly in the Qur'aan and Hadith"? Could that be the key to what's wrong with these people?

The truth will out

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side," goes the rousing anthem penned by one of our own local boys, James R. Lowell, published in the Boston Courier December 11, 1845 "as a poem protesting America’s war with Mexico." Take your pick: ROP  demonstrators like "Rage Boy " in Kashmir (AP photo) left, or the man Fallaci loved, Papa Ratzi (AFP photo).

"It's good to have come to something approaching the end of this saga, whose lessons are worth remembering." writes Cyrus Nowrasteh, screenwriter of the famously defamed TV miniseries "Path to 9/11," in his thoughtful Opinion Journal piece "The Path to Hysteria," subtitled "My sin was to write a screenplay accurately depicting Bill Clinton's record on terrorism":

The hysteria engendered by the series found more than one target. In addition to the death threats and hate mail directed at me, and my grotesque portrayal as a maddened right-winger, there developed an impassioned search for incriminating evidence on everyone else connected to the film . . . In the era of McCarthyism, the merest hint of a connection to communism sufficed to inspire dark accusations, the certainty that the accused was part of a malign conspiracy. Today, apparently, you can get something of that effect by charging a connection with a Christian mission . . .

It gave us, for one thing, a heartening glimpse (these things don't come along every day) of corporate backbone in the face of phenomenal pressure -- and an infinitely more chilling one testifying to the power and reach of politically driven hysteria. A ripe subject for a miniseries, if ever there was one.

Change "corporate" backbone to "papal" backbone and "politically driven" hysteria to "religionistically driven" hysteria, and the same can be said about Papa Razi's polite but firm refusal yesterday to bow down in dhimmitude before the howling heresimachs of the Religion of Peace™:

At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims.

These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought . . .

I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.

ScrappleFace, with only slight exaggeration, goes for the jugular:

A day after violent Muslim riots spurred Pope Benedict XVI to apologize for implying that Islam has brought more evil to the world, the Pontiff today agreed to consider a petition to add the name of Islam’s founder to the pantheon of Roman Catholic saints. Vatican researchers said the application is already being processed and they need only find one more verifiable after-death miracle attributed to Muhammad . . .

“We already have ample evidence that the long-dead prophet miraculously caused a major religious leader, with a reputation for infallibility, to apologize for telling the truth.”

Whether it's the Keepers of the Clinton "Legacy" trying to repress free speech by pressuring a network to cancel a miniseries here at home or the ululating phantasists of the Ummah calling for Benedetto's head over there, as we blogged awhile back:

The totalitarian impulse runs deep and dark in our species. The dustbin of history is filled with fiery-eyed idealists who saw the one true way and, rationalizing that ends justify the means, took it upon themselves to give thumbs up or down to mere mortals like ourselves.

Just ask George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire "dedicated to transforming our constitutional republic into a socialist hive," according Richard Poe, co-author with David Horowitz of The Shadow Party, who tells Jamie Glazov in a FrontPage interview [via Atlas Shrugs via Maggie's Farm]:

The Shadow Party operates through deception.  It uses the Democratic Party as camouflage. By posing as ordinary Democrats, Shadow Party candidates trick mainstream voters into supporting them.  Their true agenda remains concealed.  As Soros writes in The Age of Fallibility, “[T]he Democratic Party does not stand for the policies that I advocate; indeed, if it did, it could not be elected.”

When you know what's best for the rest of us, truth need not apply.

Update: Pajamas Media links.

"Agile, powerful fliers with good vision"

The evil stare of the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) -- AKA Hoot Owl, Cat Owl or Winged Tiger -- strikes terror in the hearts of over 250 species it calls prey, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and other birds sometimes 2 to 3 times heavier than itself. (Newsday Photo/Bill Davis)

We know our hero, Papa Ratzi, has a lot on his mind right now what with leading members of  the Religion of Peace™ calling for his head for condemning religious violence, and we totally agree with TigerHawk when he says "For my part, I am sick of 'Muslim rage.'" As TH suggests in his heroic post, "Grow up!"

In the great evolutionary arms race between predator and prey, birds who want to eat moths and avoid being eaten by Great Horned Owls have learned to beware of that wide-eyed look. Enter, stage left, a number of moths like the Io (Automeris io) above, who have evolved arresting "eye-spots" they can flash to scare away predators. The image above by photographer, writer and naturalist Bev Wigney of Burning Silo is the "after" of a must-see "before-and-after" sequence she calls "Moth surprise."

But when you get a minute, Papa, we'd like to call your attention to the error of your ways when it comes to Darwin's theory of evolution. If we can believe what we read [via disinterested party], you are seriously misreading Darwin's "grandeur in this view of life":

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday issued his strongest criticism yet of evolutionary theory, calling it “unreasonable.”

Speaking to a 300,000-strong crowd in this German city, the former theological watchdog said that, according to such theories derived from Charles Darwin’s work, the universe is “the random result of evolution and therefore, at bottom, something unreasonable.”

The homily appeared to throw the Catholic Church’s full weight behind the theory of intelligent design (ID) -- a subject of massive controversy in the United States. [As we've blogged here early and often] The Catholic Church has for over 50 years accepted Darwin’s theory of random selection as the most probable cause of development, but has always stressed God’s role.

We guess it depends upon what your definition of "random" is, not to mention your definitiion of "unreasonable." Is Islamicist rhetoric unreasonable, yes. Is Darwinian discourse, no. More about that in a moment, but by way of example first, some fascinating news that field naturalist Darwin would have appreciated, "whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb."

Electron microscope images of moth wing scale at point of insertion left (University of Alberta photo) and butterfly wing scales (Pacific Biosciences Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa photo). "When you catch a butterfly or moth you may notice a powder that rubs off of them. This powder is a bunch of tiny scales." According to our own Museum of Science, Boston, "These scales detatch from the wings very easily. This may be an adaptation for escaping spider webs. If a moth flies into a web, the scales may stick but the moth will escape." 

"The emergence of hanging spider webs might have influenced the evolution of flying insects," according to scientists who have found "a 136 million-year-old piece of amber encasing pieces of web and trapped insects," reports MSNBC [via Diane Duane of Out of Ambit]:

The finding helps fill in the gaps of the origin of orb webs, and also indicates predatory spiders likely played a role in the evolution of flying insects. The study is detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Another example of our favorite blind paleontologist, Geerat Vermeij's observation that when it comes to evolution, "everyone is affected mostly by their enemies."

The amber is the oldest known example of a web with trapped insects. Although only few pieces of the web remain, the arrangement of the preserved bits strongly suggests an orb web design.

For example, Grimaldi said, members of the family Lepidoptera, which includes moths and butterflies, are covered in scales that allow them to tumble out of sticky webs.

"And it happens that Lepidoptera evolved around the same time that spiders produced these webs," Grimaldi told LiveScience.

The types of insects caught in the fossilized web are important pollinators today, and may have been darting from flowering plant to flowering plant when they were captured by the web. Agile, powerful fliers with good vision, such as bees, would also stand a better chance of avoiding webs, much as they do today. Small, weak flies or less nimble fliers would have been, and still are, more commonly ensnared.

"Agile, powerful fliers with good vision." That reminds us of Benedict XVI himself when it comes to facing down the threat of Islamic fascism. But here's what we wish the great man would understand, quoted here from the blurb of Vermeij's book, Nature:  An Economic History:

From humans to hermit crabs to deep water plankton, all living things compete for locally limiting resources. This universal truth unites three bodies of thought -- economics, evolution and history -- that have developed largely in mutual isolation.  Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems -- competition, cooperation, adaptation and feedback -- govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle.

What could be more reasonable?

Update: Pajamas Media links with a great punch line:

However, one suspects that Evolutionists won’t be desecrating churches over the matter.

More tough love from John Howard's multicultural spokesman: "Australia Muslim leaders have been 'read the riot act' over the need to denounce any links between Islam and terrorism."

No more "hugs and handshakes"

"Unlike the enemy, when it came to Islam, her bomb-throwing was strictly rhetorical," writes Allapundit of Oriana Fallaci, who died today. "Indeed, Fallaci’s vogue these last few years was, I think, a reaction to western leaders mindlessly chanting 'Islam means peace' even as it becomes increasingly clear that huge swaths of Muslims have a decidedly nuanced view of what 'peace' might mean."

"Given the Pope's brave remarks just this week about Islam and jihad, which has Muslim leaders fuming (when are they not?), it has been heartening to see that [Oriana] Fallaci has had an obvious impact on his thinking," writes Michelle Malkin in her tribute to the woman referred to in our previous post (scroll down) as "the mother of all cognitive dissidents." As we noted, the celebrated and reviled Italian journalist, indicted in her native Italy for criticizing the Religion of Peace,™ was for years a voice in the wilderness trying to warn the West of the gathering forces of darkness. We've blogged here often about Fallaci's spiritual bond with Papa Ratzi -- with whom she had an audience last year -- who shared her alarm over Europe's suicidal loss of belief in itself. Perhaps sensing her time was running out, she gently but firmly chided her soulmate in an essay last summer on the London bombings, excerpted by Michelle, urging the Pope not to whitewash the "illiberal and anti-democratic -- no, cruel --essence of Islam" in the name of interfaith "dialog." Benedetto's uncompromising words this week would have reassured and comforted Fallaci:

Citing historic Christian commentary on holy war and forced conversion, the 79-year-old pontiff quoted from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

No wonder the usual suspects are upset and demanding an apology. Even as a Turkish lawmaker made the inevitable comparison of the Pope to Hitler, a Pakistani official unwittingly put his finger on the problem:

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

Denial and projection, weapons of choice among the faithful of the ROP. More excellent coverage from Time:

In a provocative speech citing the concept of jihad and referencing the Muslim prophet by name, Benedict sends the world a signal that it's time for hard questions -- not hugs and handshakes.

On Tuesday, in a riveting and provocative university lecture, the Pope explored the philosophical and historical differences between Islam and Christianity --a speech that would become the surprise centerpiece of a five-day visit that many had expected would be mostly just a walk down memory lane. There is little doubt left that Benedict is indeed highly attuned to the risks of fundamentalist terrorism. In fact, it is testament to where this problem stands on his list of priorities that he used the occasion of his triumphant return to Regensburg University, where he taught theology in the 1970s, to deliver a lecture that explored how Christians and Muslims may have historically viewed the relationship between violence and faith, based on the two religions' conceptions of the divinity.

His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity's view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that "God is absolutely transcendent." Benedict said that Islam teaches that God's "will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God's will.

ScrappleFace captures the essence of the fumers' response to the Pope's historic speech with only slight exaggeration:

Pope Benedict XVI today apologized for using a quotation in a recent speech that has offended Muslim leaders by implying that the religion of Muhammad has brought little good to the world, and much evil . . .

Upon his return to the Vatican a contrite Mr. XVI today said, “I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression about what Muhammad has done for the world. I was just quoting the old emperor. But upon further reflection, I was reminded of the mighty civilizations that Islam has spawned, and I marveled at their profound contribution to humanity.”

More about the Fallaci-Ratzinger kinship from our own post, "When an atheist and a pope think the same things," quoting an Opinion Journal interview with Tunku Varadarajan last year:

As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself," from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: "The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."

"I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."

In that letter to the Pope last summer, Fallaci referred to herself as a person "who loves you, because you are right about so many things." Amen. From his Tuesday speech:

Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats."

A host of tributes at Pajamas Media.

"Too many concerns can often lead to hardness of heart"

When 24/7 cable TV weather hysterics struck, Baby was calm beside Goomp's scratch post yesterday afternoon.

Anyone who's been paying attention knows it's all about reminding people who haven't been paying attention that it's "all Bush's fault."

Goomp's Mr. Perkins -- AKA Purrky -- carries no brief for all-Jon-Benet-all-the-time and its multifarious variants, let alone Bush Lied, People Died.™

We're prone to following Papa Ratzi's admonition [via Miss Kelly] to make room for "prayer and contemplation." Speaking during his Sunday address at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, the pope quoted from the writings of St. Bernard of Chiaravalle, who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries:

"We have to guard ourselves, the saint observed, from the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of the office one holds, because too many concerns can often lead to hardness of heart," the pope said.

"This warning is valid for every type of job, even those concerned with the government of the church."

Baby (left) and Tiny guard themselves from "the dangers of excessive activity" as they go for the jugular of their suppers yesterday evening down Goomp's.

To assure your own avoidance of the dangers of excessive activity, be sure to check out this week's totally awesome 127th Carnival of the Cats at Catymology.

"A group of pious youth relying on God"

"The possibilities opened up for us by the media revolution are marvelous and extraordinary. The media is capable of reaching not only leaders, but masses of people, indeed, humanity," said Pope Benedict XVI during his first audience with journalists last year. Above Benedetto discusses a range of topics during a "delightful  interview" -- Miss Kelly's words -- with German journalists last week.

"Reawaken the courage to make definitive decisions: they are really the only ones that allow us to grow, to move ahead and to reach something great in life," Pope Benedict XVI told a group of German journalists last week. Sub rosa blogpal MB of Miss Kelly has the story and a few good quotations. The one about "definitive decisions" above was directed at youth but resonates for all ages. Another personal favorite:

We have to witness to God in a world that has problems finding Him, as we said, and to make God visible in the human face of Jesus Christ, to offer people access to the source without which our morale becomes sterile and loses its point of reference, to give joy as well because we are not alone in this world. Only in this way joy is born before the greatness of humanity: humanity is not an evolutionary product that turned out badly. We are the image of God."

As we said in MB's comments:

My own version would be that we hold within us the potential for both extreme evil and extreme good . . . It all depends upon what we do with our human nature, and this Pope -- the right man in the right place to help us choose the extreme good -- gets it just right. 

"God's promises have come true," Iranian President Sheik Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a huge crowd waving Hizbullah banners and Iranian flags today, reports The Jerusalem Post: "On one side, it's corrupt powers of the criminal US and Britain and the Zionist . . . with modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God." With a god like that, who needs enemies? As Bernie Goldberg wrote in the Journal this morning, "after watching his '60 Minutes' interview, I came away thinking that Mr. Ahmadinejad understands us a lot better than we understand him. Over the years, dangerous men like him have learned how to play the media game. They have gotten quite sophisticated. I'm afraid we haven't." Enter, stage right, Benedetto.

Both Benedetto and the Sheik understand the power of the press, and each would exploit it for his own vision of the good. One preaches hate, the other, love. One would violently crush all dissent, the other would engage all of humanity in a cosmic conversation. As we blogged last year:

And we do think we know the answer to Fallaci's "some human truth here that is beyond religion." It's the tragic view of human nature -- vs. the Left's utopian, blank-slate, noble-savage one that denies any such thing as human nature -- that acknowledges the dark side in all of us and tries to design political institutions -- the U.S. Constitution comes to mind -- that channel our potentially destructive human nature into productive self-fulfillment (can you say invisible hand?) that redounds to the good of the larger community.

Ahmadinejad & Company, projecting their own self-loathing onto the infidel, may fantasize that -- as Iranian academic Heshmatollah Qanbari phrased it on Iranian TV two years back  -- the Jews are the source of "all corrupt traits in humanity" and throughout history have exhibited expansionist tendencies, but who are you going to believe, Ahmadinejad or your eyes?