Wednesday, September 20, 2006

My take on the unfortunate miscontruction of Pope Benedict's statement

My take on the unfortunate miscontruction of Pope Benedict's statement

I downloaded Pope Benedict's 'Faith, Reason and the University-Memories and Reflection' lecture, just to see what the whole blow-out is about. Once I'm done with that, maybe I'll post up a comment. It might be incendiary, though, so I'll need to see what I can write.

What do I think of the media frenzy though?

1. The Pope isn't wrong. His might be a tactless, but genuine attempt at trying to bridge the gap between religions and to attempt to foster inter-religious dialogue. Unfortunately, the Bible is right with this statement: Why throw pearls before swine? The target audience is at present way too thin-skinned and far too quick to jump and judge at any eggshell moment/ misconstrued statement. If one party holds out a hand in a handshake, but the other bites it, what can one do? My opinion? Apologise for the fiasco, walk away and let the matter lie until a more suitable moment. How can there be inter-religious dialogue when parties cannot question or speak relatively openly?

2. The Pope, unfortunately, does not have either the charm, or the media savvy of Pope John Paul II. He forgets that he's now a world leader constantly in the public eye, and is no longer Fr. Ratzinger who was a lecturer. He's a theologian, and an obvious academician, but academia is lost on the controversial-hungry media, and the normal populace. Such a statement, though it IS a quote, was folly on the pontiff's part. It was handing to the media, constantly hungry for controversy, and waiting for any 'booboo' made by something as traditional and old-school as the Catholic tradition, controversy with a capital C on a silver platter, to have a field day. How unfortunate. The pontiff had valid points. But those points are suitable only for debates in the classroom (unfortunately), not for public speaking to a stubborn, head-strong audience.

What's the world coming to? Everything and everyone seems to be walking on eggshells.

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