Thursday, January 26, 2006
ANOTHER WITHDRAWAL
Once again Rome has issued another flip-flop, this time leaving Fr. Fessio in the lurch according to an article linked at NOR:
ROMA, January 26, 2006 – A few hours after the previous article on Benedict XVI and Islam was published online by www.chiesa, the contrasting interpretations over the pope’s thought were smoothed out.
The disagreement hinged upon whether or not Islam can be reformed, and consequently upon the relationship between Islam and modernity.
The American Jesuit Joseph Fessio – who participated, together with other former students of Joseph Ratzinger, in a meeting with the pope for the purpose of studying the concept of God in Islam – had said in a radio interview on January 5 that, at the meeting, the pope had asserted that Islam and modernity cannot be reconciled.
But other participants at the meeting – Jesuit Islamic studies scholar Christian W. Troll, from Germany, and Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian – gave a different version of the pope’s thought. According to their testimony, Benedict XVI had judged the reconciliation of Islam and modernity as very difficult, but not impossible.
Continue reading...
Sort of like the "It is as it was" controversy.
One gets the sense that the journalists are standing on shifting sand. Could that be the reason there are few comments on the encyclical this morning?
There is one comment on it linked at NOR. Ian Fisher's take on it in the New York Times is similar to mine. He quotes Fr. Fessio. I hope this time Fr. Fessio won't have to retract his statements!
