Benedict under scrutiny

…and a lot of pressure, it would seem to the world, as this Pope prepares to go into Turkey on Tuesday.

No papal words will be parsed more closely by more people around the globe – and with more trepidation – than those that are spoken by Pope Benedict this week on his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country.

Those who know and follow Benedict know that the trepidation will not be on his part.

From the moment he touches down in Turkey, the pontiff’s every utterance will be studied for signs of conciliation or confrontation. Will he dare mention the strains of Islam that produce murderous fanaticism, thus risking offense, thus risking murderous fanaticism?

Will the media work hard to research the background of this visit and cover the depth of it? Will they dare “mention the strains of Islam that produce murderous fanaticism”?

He’s a brave man, Benedict.

Braver – seriously – than a lot of the world’s major media.

As all the planet remembers, his suggestion in September that bloody jihad can rise from faith untempered by reason provoked fury in the Muslim world. Churches were burned. A nun was slain. Now, this journey, long planned as a pilgrimage to ancient Christian communities, sets the stage for renewed reflections on decidedly hostile territory. 

No understatement there.

After the Pope’s address two months ago…a spokesman for the Turkish ruling party declared that Benedict “is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini.” Many apparently still feel that way.

Thanks to the agitprop of some media and clerics. It’s scaring off the government and driving angry people to the streets.

The Turkish prime minister and foreign minister have seen fit to be out of the country during Benedict’s visit. And protests already have begun, partly over fears the Pope would pray in the Hagia Sophia, an Istanbul landmark that was an Eastern Orthodox church until the 15th century, when it was converted into a mosque. Since 1935, the building has been a museum and popular tourist destination.

(Benedict will visit Istanbul’s Blue Mosque as “a sign of respect” to Muslims, according to the Vatican.)

The speculation continues…

He will likely express the Catholic Church’s “profound respect” for the Muslim faith, as he did in the aftermath of his remarks two months ago. And it would not be surprising were he to admire Islam’s inculcation of values on matters such as abortion, while decrying the lack of such values in his own sphere.

But there is also no doubt that Benedict will travel with another agenda, one that grows out of his own faith and out of the larger Judeo-Christian tradition, both of which abhor zealotry that discards the sanctity of life.

It is sacred in all stages of development, to stay consistent with that shared opposition to abortion 

He insists on reciprocity, the principle that churches should be as welcome in Riyadh as mosques are in Rome.

What is the reasonable argument against that, anyway?

And he appears to believe deeply that the world is now engaged in a clash not of civilizations, but in a clash for civilization.

And he is leading the world in confronting it with determination.