Hand over the message, and run

Turkish officials have come up with the message they want Pope Benedict to deliver when he visits Turkey next week. Guess what it is.

Turkey’s religious-affairs minister has announced that during his visit next week, Pope Benedict XVI should declare that Islam is a religion of peace.

Where was this religious affairs minister when the violence broke out, a church was torched and a nun murdered over something Muslim extremists thought the Pope said in his Regensburg address?

Well, he’s speaking now.

Ali Bardakoglu told the Reuters news agency that the Pope should make it clear that violence is caused by “fallible and misguided humans,” not religious beliefs. “If they ask me if Christianity has been the cause of violence, I would say No,” reasoned Turkey’s top Muslim official.

That’s a hypothetical. As the top Muslim official in Turkey he is on the spot now to make bolder clarifications than that, especially with the pending visit of Benedict to a land where radicals are ramping up the threatening rhetoric. And speaking of clarifications, he and other officials should be aware that Pope Benedict has, as a matter of fact, taught repeatedly that violence is caused by misguided humans.

But it sounds like they may be too busy packing their bags to do much reading.

Meanwhile the country’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, has added his name to the list of government officials who will be unavailable to meet with Pope Benedict. The foreign minister explained that he will be attending a meeting of NATO leaders in Estonia.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already announced his plans to be at the NATO meeting during the Pope’s visit. Vatican officials had downplayed the significance of the premier’s absence, saying that they were always aware of Erdogan’s plans to be in Estonia. But organizers of the papal visit had expected a meeting with the foreign minister.

Pope Benedict is still scheduled to meet with Turkey’s President Necdet Sezer on the first evening of his stay in the country. The Turkish head of state will not meet the papal plane on his arrival, however. Turkish officials have consistently minimized the importance of the papal visit.

For the record, Benedict is not exactly going to Turkey to meet them, though that would serve the purpose of peaceful dialogue that he always promotes. His visit is to address the East-West divide in the Church, and to meet with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

“This trip could reinforce what many Orthodox already feel – that Pope Benedict is interested in making a real effort at healing the differences,” said Thomas FitzGerald, dean at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass….

Even the timing of Benedict’s trip is built around Orthodox sensibilities. His time with Bartholomew coincides with the feast day of the apostle-martyr St. Andrew, who traveled through Asia Minor and the Balkans and who, tradition says, ordained the first bishop of what would become Constantinople.

The Pope will continue to represent a religion of peace and a leadership of peaceful outreach. It’s up to the Muslims to represent what they believe.