I've been thinking about the Pope's speech again. What was he really saying? Did he really mean anything with his reference to Islam?
There have been a lot of commentaries claiming that the speech was about faith and reason and that he referred to Manuel II Paleologus just to make a point. Fr. McBrien of Notre Dame says that the Pope's mentioning of Manuel II had "much less to do with the justification of violence attributed to the Prophet Muhammed than it did with the role of reason in the understanding of faith".
If the Pope were still an academic theologian I'd buy that. Fr. McBrien is an academic and he presumes the Pope is only talking to people like him when he makes a speech that is "dense and intellectually demanding - too demanding for anyone not schooled in theology, philosophy, history or cultural studies".
But, Fr. McBrien is missing the bigger picture. If Benedict had wanted to address theologians and only theologians, he'd have made this a much less public speech. He'd have had a private audience in Rome. But, the Pope was speaking in Regensburg, his home town, where the press coverage was complete. He knew this speech would reach a wide audience.
This Pope has been in the habit of making some strong statements to a wide audience for many years. He doesn't pull his punches. For all the great things John Paul II did while Pope, he didn't halt the decline of the Church in Europe, which is what Benedict sees as his primary mission. He doesn't consider it a lost cause, but he clearly sees that it will be a struggle.
If it's not too crude to make an analogy with the business world, Benedict believes that there's a growing market for spiritual support and guidance in Europe. And, he knows that to most Europeans the Catholic Church is 'against abortion, against divorce and against contraception' and that's about it. That is, the Catholic Church is not well placed to capitalize on this growing market despite (or maybe because of) the Church's market penetration and infrastructure.
The Pope sees Islam making huge inroads in 'Christian Europe' and asks, "Hey, what are they doing right that we're doing wrong?" Well, one thing they're doing right is proselytizing in Europe while denying the right to others to do the same in 'the Islamic world'. So, the Pope seeks "reciprocity" - Christians should be able to worship as freely in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) as Muslims are in Europe. Such reciprocity would cause Muslims to have to pay attention to the home market, where they currently have a stranglehold.
However, more importantly, the Pope has decided it's time to differentiate the Church in the market. That was the main thrust of the Pope's speech. "If you're a European looking for answers, this is what the Catholic Church has to offer. We think you'll like this better than what the other guy is offering."
Despite what Fr. McBrien might believe (or wish) I think an audience of MBA students would more clearly understand what the Pope was saying last week.
