The death of the former Pope Benedict officially closed a period of militant counterattack by Christianity against Islam. During his own tenure there were also the last theoretical / theological skirmishes between the papal Church and militant Islam. Benedict had shown himself absolutely determined to reverse the tide of expansion of Islam’s global influence and was virtually the only pontiff who had been genuinely alarmed by the creation of the Islamic State and the large flow of Muslim refugees/immigrants to Europe.
Typical was the speech of Benedict, who essentially described the captivity of the Byzantine emperor Manuel Palaiologos by Islam, which was gaining strength in those years. At the time, there had been considerable turmoil within the Catholic Church over the words of its superior. In Islamic circles the response was for a “reactionary” Pope who insisted on the superiority of Christianity and who would not bow to the new aggressiveness of Islam. At the same time, the Orthodox Church in those days did not take a straightforward position on the issue. Reasonable on the one hand, if one considers where the Orthodox Patriarchate is located and what exactly it has to deal with.
Benedict was a pontiff with an opinion and active understanding of the role of the Christian Church. As responsible for the “defense of the faith” under the Polish Pope John Paul, he was distinguished for his theological knowledge and insightful speech. Of course, it fell on bad times for the institution… Many scandals had hit Catholicism at the time. All this prevented him from making the decisive moves he wanted to promote for the strengthened militant presence of Christianity against militant Islam and jihadist fanatics.
His speech then at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria where he diagnosed Islam as a religion with deep weaknesses of fanaticism was certainly not an example of high diplomacy. But it was a genuine cry of concern from a leader who saw the heart of his faith under fierce attack. It naturally provoked strong reactions from the Muslim world and led to a series of moves that eventually led to papal dysfunction later and ultimately Benedict’s resignation. It is not unrealistic to say that the Pope’s open opposition to Islam was what ultimately led to his removal from the leadership of the Vatican.
As Fr. Raymond de Souza in the National Catholic Register, “the Regensburg speech was not the work of a professor or even a Pope. If we take into account that it happened about a year after 9/11, it was the work of a prophet.” After the bloody works, not long after, of the Islamic State, many of Benedict’s allies among conservative Catholics could claim: “He had warned you.”
