Pope Benedict XVI and the War on Terrorism

The war on terrorism can be understood as one facet of the war between radical Islamism and the rest of the world.

Just as his predecessor Pope John Paul II fought and eventually defeated communism in Europe through his writings and spiritual leadership, so Pope Benedict XVI has taken on the struggle against the Islamization of Europe.  Like his predecessor, he employs writing and his intellectual and spiritual leadership as head of the Roman Catholic faith as his weapons.

Benedict maintains that the character of modern Europe was developed in a Christian tradition, and retains that character despite Europe having largely fallen away from the practice of faith.  Benedict does not directly call Europeans to return to practicing Christianity, but rather he appeals to their sense of cultural survival in the face of rising Muslim immigration to Europe and the population growth of Islamic communities already settled in Europe.  With the advance of the Islamic community as a whole, radical Islamism seems to follow.

Two articles below capture the thrust of Benedict’s effort.  The first is to place religion on the same intellectual basis as science is, and to argue that the nature of God is the logos, that is the word and reason.  This fact of logos is what makes God comprehensible, however imperfectly, to man.

Islam, Benedict argues, rejects Hellenic reasoning; that is it does not accept the Law of Non-Contradiction.  Islam believes that Allah is transcendent, meaning that Allah is capable of contradicting himself and is entirely incomprehensible to man.  In his Regensburg speech, Benedict subtly invites the leading lights of Islam to debate religious matters on the basis of reason.  This they cannot do for they would run into the Law of Non-Contradiction, which they must reject or be destroyed by it.

The pieces following are an analysis of a book written before he became Pope, and of his Regensburg speech.