The Pope in Turkey: 'Istanbul Peace'
Pope Benedict XVI has been greeted in Turkey with a lecture on how the Christian West scorns Islam. He left yesterday with Istanbul’s chief Islamic cleric speaking lyrically of better days ahead between the faiths.
Few predicted how boldly – and with such apparent success – the pontiff would seek to remake his battered image in the Muslim world during four days of speeches, sermons and symbolism that included an instantly famous moment of silent prayer in a mosque while facing Mecca.
“Istanbul is a bridge that unites sides,” the pope said before ending his first papal trip to the Muslim world. “I hope that this dialogue continues.”
Turkey’s influential Milliyet newspaper bid the pope farewell with an optimistic headline: “The Istanbul Peace.”
However, it will require attention to sustain.
The pope left without laying out clear ideas on how to follow through with his promises for greater understanding and dialogue with Islam. He also put some sensitive demands on the table: wider protections and rights for Christian minorities, including Turkey’s tiny communities whose roots go back to the apostles.
Benedict even edged toward the same ideas that made him an enemy in the eyes of Islam – his belief that Christianity’s mix of faith and reason make it a guiding light of tolerance.
Yet this time – unlike his address in September – he carefully avoided anything that could be perceived as a slight against Islam. He said all religious leaders must ”utterly refuse” to support violence. Even when a statement from al-Qaida in Iraq denounced the trip, the Vatican responded with a general rebuke of “violence in the name of God.”
Mustafa Cagrici, the head mufti in Istanbul, waxed poetic about “a spring ahead for this world” after praying alongside Benedict at the city’s famed Blue Mosque yesterday.
Scenes from the pope’s minute of prayer – eyes closed, hands clasped – were on nearly every front page in Turkey. ”History written in Istanbul,” wrote the newspaper. Cagrici said the pope “stood in prayer just like Muslims.”
The pope’s visit also made the front pages of several Arab newspapers. The pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat ran a front-page picture of the pope praying in the Blue Mosque, with the headline, “The pope turns toward Mecca in prayer.”
“He came here with humility, and for the pontiff that takes an act of courage,” said the Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, a Greek Orthodox clergyman who planned the meetings between the pope and the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.
Their encounters – intended as the centrepiece of the trip before the Muslim fury from Benedict’s speech – included passionate calls by the pope to end the divisions within Christianity, beginning with the nearly 1,000-year rift between the Vatican and the more than 250 million Orthodox.
The pope also took several opportunities to stress the Christian heritage of Europe.
His Turkish hosts were left puzzled whether it meant the Vatican was taking a stand against Turkey's struggle to become the first Muslim nation in the European Union, which plans a key vote on the status of the troubled bid during a December 14-15 summit.
Every Turkish official is well versed in Benedict’s past statements when – as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – he raised questions on whether a Muslim nation belonged in the bloc.
However, Dogil Ergil, a professor of social and religious trends at Ankara University, believes the pope is not trying to send a message to the EU.
“The pope is on the side of coexistence with Islam,” said Ergil. “The head that wears the crown grows more intelligent. Since becoming pope, he is no longer acting like Cardinal Ratzinger.”
And he even cast off any public trace of his explosive lecture in Germany, when he quoted a medieval Christian emperor describing the teachings of Prophet Muhammad as ”evil and inhuman.” The Vatican said the pope was seeking to draw attention to the incompatibility of faith and violence.
But the Islamic world heard a stinging insult. The backlash included attacks on churches in the Holy Land and protests from Morocco to Indonesia.
Turkish authorities mobilised their biggest security force in decades. Istanbul’s police chief, Celalettin Cerrah, said more than 9,500 officers were on duty during the entire papal visit. Helicopters buzzed over rooftops and minarets. Sharpshooters watched over every stretch of the papal route.
In the end, only several limited demonstrations were held during the visit. The crowds also were small in a nation of about 90,000 Christians among 70 million Muslims. At one papal stop, a shopper heard a few cries of “Viva il Papa” and walked over to shout curses against the pontiff before continuing on his way.
The pope never wavered from his message of reconciliation.
“You know well that the church wishes to impose nothing on anyone, and that she merely asks to live in freedom,” Benedict said today during a Mass for members of Turkey’s tiny Roman Catholic community, which numbers no more than 30,000.
He reminded them to “walk the humble path of daily companionship with those who do not share our faith.”
In the courtyard of the 160-year-old Holy Spirit Cathedral, the pope released several white doves. Nearby was a statue of the World War I-era pontiff that inspired his papal name, Benedict XV, which was erected by Turkey in honour of that pope’s work “as a benefactor of all people, regardless of nation or creed.”
In his last moment in Turkey, the pope walked down a red carpet before boarding a special Turkish Airlines flight to Rome. “I hope this visit contributes to peace and dialogue between faiths,” he told Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler at Istanbul’s international airport.
Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz, the former head of Turkey’s directorate for religious affairs, said the pope facing Mecca was a “great gesture” for the Muslim world.
It marked only the second papal visit in history to a Muslim place of worship. John Paul II made a brief stop in a mosque in Syria in 2001.
One of the most tense moments of the trip came during its first hours on Tuesday. Ali Bardakoglu, the top Muslim cleric in Turkey, sat across from Benedict and complained that claims about Islam’s violent nature were feeding “a growing Islamophobia” in the West.
Today, however, Bardakoglu called the visit “a very positive step.”
A member of the papal entourage was comfortable with even more epic terms.
Cardinal Roger Etchagaray compared the mosque visit to John Paul II’s dramatic stop at Israel’s Western Wall, where he left a copy of his declaration asking God’s forgiveness for sins against the Jews.
“Benedict did for the Muslims what John Paul did for the Jews,” the cardinal told reporters.
