Faith, Reason and Politics: Parsing the Pope’s Remarks
September 20th, 2006 by
Senior Editor: Jeff
Stratfor just released an analysis of Pope Benedict's recent comments. Quite interesting!
Long, but well worth it.
(note: I recently published the entire commentary, but for brevity's sake will summarize it.)
Essentially, the Pope knew what he was doing. He sees how the war in Afghanistan and Iraq are going, he sees how Christians are treated, he knew the effect his words would bring. He is a politician after all: ruler of an autonomous state, etc…
He called Islam out. He lifted up the rationality of the West and Christianity (and so doing lended support to Bush), and asked Islam to do the same. He gains popularity with his followers, helps Bush out, gives hope to Christians in Islamic states, condemns the violence of Islam, puts the burden of proof on Islamic leaders, all while maintaining the ability to distance himself from his remarks. Brilliant. Bravo!
My summary is terrible, George Freidman did a much better job, please check it out.
