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INTERVIEW - POPE TO USE TURKEY TRIP TO HELP WEST-ISLAM DIALOGUE
By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan
Reuters, UK
March 27 2006
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict will use his trip to
predominantly Muslim Turkey later this year to promote greater dialogue
between Islam and the West, a senior Vatican cardinal said on Monday.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German like the Pope, also said in an
interview with Reuters that he believed that a controversy over remarks
made by Benedict before his election about Turkey's credentials to
join the European Union had now been overcome.
The Pope is scheduled to visit Turkey Nov. 28-30 for what will
predominantly be a trip aimed at improving ties with Orthodox
Christians, whose symbolic head, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,
is based in Istanbul.
"This is one of the main problems today, to come to a relationship
with Islam which will not be a clash of civilisations but a dialogue
between civilisations," Kasper, head of the Council for Christian
Unity, said in a wide-ranging interview on the Catholic Church's
ecumenical activities.
"Of course, nobody wants a clash of cultures. It would be disastrous
for the whole world," Kasper said adding that he expected the Pope
to speak on relations with Islam at meetings with Turkey's government
in Ankara before going to Istanbul.
"There, I think, the problem is unavoidable," Kasper said.
Since his election in April, the Pope has condemned cartoons lampooning
the prophet Mohammad but has also called for charges to be dropped
against an Afghan man who faces possible capital punishment because
he converted from Islam to Christianity.
His aides have been stressing the Vatican's view that the rights of
minority Christians in Islamic countries had to be respected as part
of reciprocity for the religious freedoms available to Muslims in
Christian countries.
Relations with Islam were also a top item on the agenda of closed-door
discussions last week among over 150 cardinals meeting at the Vatican
to admit 15 new members into what Benedict calls his "senate."
POSITIVE INFLUENCE
"There are many difficult and deep questions we have to solve with
Islam but we also must remember times of good relations. There
have been many positive influences of Islam, also on Christianity,"
Kasper said.
"We must try to deepen our dialogue with Islam, especially with
moderate forces in Islam and to try to come to a positive and friendly
relationship," he said.
When he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope gave a
controversial interview arguing that Europe's roots are Christian
and that a Muslim country would not fit in.
Some 99 percent of Turks are Muslims, the majority of them in
the mainstream Sunni tradition. Most of Turkey's ancient Christian
population -- chiefly Greeks and Armenians -- fled, perished or were
exchanged with Greek Muslims in the 1920s.
The trip was delayed by a year because of Turkey's lingering suspicions
about the comments but Kasper said he believed the problem was now
in the past and that the Pope would not bring it up during the visit.
"That was a private opinion by Cardinal Ratzinger ... I don't think the
Pope, when he goes as Pope to Turkey, will speak of this," Kasper said.
Turkey began European Union membership talks last October, but is
not expected to join the bloc before 2015 at the earliest.
Many in the EU are wary about admitting Turkey, a large, mainly Muslim
and relatively poor country of 72 million people.
The Pope's visit to Istanbul will be seen as a major step forward
in relations between the Western Church and world Orthodoxy, which
split >From each other in the schism of 1054.
As Constantinople, the city later served as the centre of eastern
Christianity for centuries until it fell to the Turks in 1453,
becoming in turn the capital of the Muslim Ottoman empire.
By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan
Reuters, UK
March 27 2006
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict will use his trip to
predominantly Muslim Turkey later this year to promote greater dialogue
between Islam and the West, a senior Vatican cardinal said on Monday.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German like the Pope, also said in an
interview with Reuters that he believed that a controversy over remarks
made by Benedict before his election about Turkey's credentials to
join the European Union had now been overcome.
The Pope is scheduled to visit Turkey Nov. 28-30 for what will
predominantly be a trip aimed at improving ties with Orthodox
Christians, whose symbolic head, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,
is based in Istanbul.
"This is one of the main problems today, to come to a relationship
with Islam which will not be a clash of civilisations but a dialogue
between civilisations," Kasper, head of the Council for Christian
Unity, said in a wide-ranging interview on the Catholic Church's
ecumenical activities.
"Of course, nobody wants a clash of cultures. It would be disastrous
for the whole world," Kasper said adding that he expected the Pope
to speak on relations with Islam at meetings with Turkey's government
in Ankara before going to Istanbul.
"There, I think, the problem is unavoidable," Kasper said.
Since his election in April, the Pope has condemned cartoons lampooning
the prophet Mohammad but has also called for charges to be dropped
against an Afghan man who faces possible capital punishment because
he converted from Islam to Christianity.
His aides have been stressing the Vatican's view that the rights of
minority Christians in Islamic countries had to be respected as part
of reciprocity for the religious freedoms available to Muslims in
Christian countries.
Relations with Islam were also a top item on the agenda of closed-door
discussions last week among over 150 cardinals meeting at the Vatican
to admit 15 new members into what Benedict calls his "senate."
POSITIVE INFLUENCE
"There are many difficult and deep questions we have to solve with
Islam but we also must remember times of good relations. There
have been many positive influences of Islam, also on Christianity,"
Kasper said.
"We must try to deepen our dialogue with Islam, especially with
moderate forces in Islam and to try to come to a positive and friendly
relationship," he said.
When he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope gave a
controversial interview arguing that Europe's roots are Christian
and that a Muslim country would not fit in.
Some 99 percent of Turks are Muslims, the majority of them in
the mainstream Sunni tradition. Most of Turkey's ancient Christian
population -- chiefly Greeks and Armenians -- fled, perished or were
exchanged with Greek Muslims in the 1920s.
The trip was delayed by a year because of Turkey's lingering suspicions
about the comments but Kasper said he believed the problem was now
in the past and that the Pope would not bring it up during the visit.
"That was a private opinion by Cardinal Ratzinger ... I don't think the
Pope, when he goes as Pope to Turkey, will speak of this," Kasper said.
Turkey began European Union membership talks last October, but is
not expected to join the bloc before 2015 at the earliest.
Many in the EU are wary about admitting Turkey, a large, mainly Muslim
and relatively poor country of 72 million people.
The Pope's visit to Istanbul will be seen as a major step forward
in relations between the Western Church and world Orthodoxy, which
split >From each other in the schism of 1054.
As Constantinople, the city later served as the centre of eastern
Christianity for centuries until it fell to the Turks in 1453,
becoming in turn the capital of the Muslim Ottoman empire.