Defending the Pope

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A month or so ago, I found myself in the curious position, as an Anglican, of defending the Pope.

A Turkish correspondant was incensed by reports in her newspaper that the Pope had insulted Islam. Since the news had not yet broken in my media it took a number of ventures into Google before I began to grasp what was happening. And it took considerable effort to persuade her that, as far as I could tell, the Pope had made a rather complicated statement which had been immediately misreported. I predicted crowds in the streets, and burning flags, and was almost right.

Over the next two nights I struggled to pacify other correspondants on the same subject.

Perhaps it shouldn’t matter to me. The Office of the Pope is large enough to handle the flak - to control the spin, you would think. And I could say that as I’m Church of England, the Pope doesn’t speak for me. On reflection, however, I’d rather he spoke for me than, for example, George Bush, if only on the grounds that the Vatican isn’t likely to start a war any time soon, and hence the Pope is less hazardous to my security.

The trouble is that once again the hornet’s nest is stirred up, and security again becomes fragile in certain regions of the world. The words have been spoken, and can’t be retracted. It’s clear to most intelligent non-muslims that there was a context to the Pope´s remarks, but that they were not a direct attack on Islam.

The trouble is too that there are some very thin-skinned people out there, and many of them seem only too keen to feel offended at the least excuse.

The West as a whole frequently has to sit back and take a great deal of abuse from the other side, without flinching. True there are random acts of violence, which to those affected seem major, but so far we in the West have not taken to the streets by the thousand to scream and wail, burning effigies and flags by way of protest - perhaps we should.

But in the meantime what of the Pope?

Well the poor old guy had to apologise.

Several times.

He was even under pressure to apologise for his previous apologies – demands coming from people who really had no idea what he said in the first place.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Pope´s first words when he began to reply to the criticism should have been: “Listen, I wasn’t talking to you......”?
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