One Man’s Religion as Another Man’s Belly Laugh

The world has not seen a Pope as openly prejudiced as Benedict for a long time. The last Pope with a similar nature, Pius Xiith who held office during World War-2, was similarly a supporter of the Nazis, a man whose history has been carefully researched by both Catholic historians like John Cornwell and independent researchers like Vladimir Dedijer, Guenter Lewy, Mark Aarons and ROnald Rychlak. Though Benedict has claimed that his membershipn in the Hitler Youth was mandatory, it has been conclusively shown that this was not mandatory during the war. Nor do his supporters’ comments that he could not have stood against the Nazis make any sense - the Pope has an authority that ahs been vested by his religion in him and his predecessors - the authority to excommunicate those whom they consider a disgrace to their faith. No pope has, to date, even thought about excommunicating the Nazis.

There was evidence that the Catholic church was becoming increasingly prejudiced and not just at Benedict’s level in recent years. The late Archbishop Alain de Lastic in New Delhi refused to attend an inter-religious service to commemorate Graham Staines and his sons because he said that the Stanies’ had belonged to a false church. Benedict had, himself, publicly opposed the entry of Turkey into the EU in an interview in Le Figaro some years ago citing Islam as the reason, leave aside the fact that Turkey is among the most secular nations in the world, not just among Muslim nations. And, there was more to come - his first comments after becoming pope about India led to India’s otherwise mild Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoning the Vatican’s Ambassador to his office and giving him a dressing down. A few days later, in a complete reversal of his predecessor, John Paul II’s attempts at making peace with Islam by sending a delegation of priests to Jerusalem from Rome on foot to apologise for the Crusades, Benedict spoke of the Crusades having been divinely inspired. It was a question of time before he made another prejudiced comment, and that was not long in coming - a trip to Germany, his country of birth and where the present government is headed by a Chancellor who gushes with reverence for him, inspired the latest comments against Islam.

It has been amusing to me how the dire predictions of violence by Muslims by the right wing Christian groups in the US, where I live, have fallen flat. There were some violent incidents, yes, but the only death that some point to, that of a nun in Somalia, is not considered to be related to these remarks even by the church. By and large, the response from the world’s Muslims was one of vocal protests, not violent ones. If Benedict’s attempts at wooing militant Christians by criticising Islam was as specacularly a flop show as this, the man is not likely to succeed in marketing these prejudices to too many people, or even to get the kind of violent response that he could use to build on his ridiculous argument, something that he most certainly craved.

To me, an atheist, the whole thing was simple. Benedict, as the top Catholic, is a salesman for his religion. Like any other salesman, he tried selling his product. Where he made a big mistake was in comparing it to a rival one - his sales pitch failed even among those who he thought would jump onto his side. And, he got a response that his words deserved - Muhammad Al Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan strongman Muammar AL Gaddafi, asked him to convert to Islam to repent his words. A stupid comment deserves a stupid response and Benedict got what he richly deserved. Yes, Madeleine O Hair was absolutely right - one man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh. Were she alive today, she would be laughing loudest at this battle of dimwits.