Madam, - Allow me to say what an excellent and important job you did in publishing the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's address to the professors and faculties of the University of Regensburg which caused such a furore in the world of religions. It gave readers the opportunity of appreciating the context in which the so-called offensive quotation was read.
The address itself was a most enlightening dissertation on the relationship between faith and reason. It was too bad that the offending passage was isolated from its context which was precisely to show the need for a more frank and open dialogue between the religious blocks that influence the thinking and actions of human beings.
This type of fixation on a particular little item in proportion to the whole speech reminds me of the type of exercise that one is asked to do at one of those self-analysis courses where a white sheet with a little black spot is put in front of one and the facilitator asks: "What do you see?" Invariably the answer given is: "A little black spot." To which the facilitator remarks: "Strange that you see only the little black spot and not the whole white sheet."
I feel that the present controversy is something like that. So let people read the whole context and then draw their own rational conclusions. - Yours, etc,
Fr PLACID C NOLAN, OP,
Holy Cross Priory,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.
Madam, - Vincent Browne's latest anti-Catholic diatribe (Opinion, September 20th) is far more outrageous and offensive than any speech by Pope Benedict. In his attacks upon a distinguished church leader delivering a complex lecture in a university setting, he opposes both religious and academic freedom. He needs to clarify whether he supports either freedom or not.
His column displays all the worst features of most of the journalistic comment on the Pope's speech. First, he does not actually engage with any of the arguments made by the Pope. He prefers to play the man rather than the ball.
Second, he displays an alarming ignorance of world history, an extremely damaging Eurocentic viewpoint. The history of Muslim-Christian relations did not begin with the Crusades. Nor was all light and happiness until then. The reality was that Islam was spread by the sword throughout the former territories of the Byzantine and Persian empires. Manuel Paleologus had a point.
It would be tiresome to have to list the countless examples of every type of crime, whether the execution of the bishop of Jerusalem, Sophronius, in 640 because he urged some Byzantine prisoners not to convert to Islam, or the massacre of the entire inhabitants of Caesarea in Palestine in 641.
Mr Browne's complete ignorance of Byzantine or near Eastern history would not matter so much if it did not serve to fuel the ignorance and hatred of the West felt by so many Muslim groups already, their inappropriate sense of victimhood, and their almost total ignorance of their own history. In reality, critical historical research of their own history and religion simply does not occur in Muslim countries. The sad fate of Suliman Bashear will ensure that this remains the case.
If Mr Browne does want to express outrage about anything, it should be about the fact there is not a single lecturer in Byzantine history at any university in the Republic. Or perhaps he is happy for future generations of Irish students and journalists to wallow in the same ignorance and prejudice which he finds so comfortable? - Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID WOODS,
Acting Head,
Department of Classics,
University College Cork.
Madam, - The Pope has apologised. He was, at worst, misguided. That, of course, will not be enough for some. His effigies will continue to be burned. Christian churches will be pillaged. Anti-western bile will continue to be spewed in our direction by opportunistic Muslim fundamentalists and their gullible followers. We will, dutifully, turn the other cheek.
Would it be too much to hope that this episode might be a catalyst to encourage moderate Islam to confront its religious extremist rump, with its over-literal interpretation of the Koran and its glorification of suicide bombers and so-called martyrdom? - Yours, etc,
LOUIS HOGAN,
Glendasan Drive,
Harbour View,
Wicklow Town.