BE OBEDIENT TO THE TRUTH

The Wisdom of Benedict XVI
1391 and 2006.
By Laurent Murawiec

Hearing pundits and spinmeisters opine that Benedict XVI had not mastered the skills of media management was a reminder that in the world of appearances, papier mâché figures usurp in surface what they lack in depth. Contrary to his detractors, the pope is dealing in the real world.

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Politics is theology diluted. The pope’s admonition to “be obedient to the truth” is the core of the civilization built by Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. His mention of the Muslim doctrinaire of “Zahirism,” Ibn Hazm of Cordova (d. 1064) who, he recalls, went so far as to state “that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry,” ought to be taken seriously — Ibn Hazm, after all, was a noted theorist of jihad.

Contrary to the naïve souls of unbounded cleverness, the pope is not trying to be nice, or to “sell” his doctrine like a Madison Avenue salesman. The dialogue he reports on takes place “in the winter barracks near Ankara.” There is a war going on. It is not a war “on terror,” it is a war on jihad and an Islam that has, for all practical purposes, throw its lot with the jihadis, or at least never clearly and practically distanced itself from jihad. The emperor wrote the dialogue “during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402.” Ideas have consequences. The denial of human reason and the denial of faith go hand in hand to promote inhumanity. The West cannot defend itself if it believes in nothing. “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature,” Benedict XVI reminds us — but what is Al Jazeera doing when it gleefully airs mass consumption snuff movies of jihadis beheading “infidels”? Jihad is the pathology of religion just as Nazism and Bolshevism were the pathologies of reason and modernity.

The irrational nihilism of modern jihad is what produces the torrents of blood spilled by the jihadis throughout the world. “We love death more than you love life,” they proudly proclaim. In promoting a culture of life, of faith and reason, the pope is boldly taking the moral and intellectual leadership that has been sorely missing in our response to the war declared on us on September 11.

Pertinent Links:

1) The Wisdom of Benedict XVI